Johnson will guarantee the FedEx Cup title with victory at the Tour Championship but a top-five finish could also be enough.
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Open champion Dustin Johnson birdied the final hole to cap a four-under-par 66 and grab a share of the first-round lead alongside Hideki Matsuyama and Kevin Chappell at the USPGA Tour Championship in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday.
Thursday was Day’s first competitive round since he withdrew after nine holes at the BMW Championship.
He heads up a group of golfers who are one-shot off the pace.
Patrick Reed, who along with Johnson, Day, Scott and Casey can win the Fedex Cup with a win this week regardless of other results, struggled to re-capture the form that saw him win the opening play-off event in NY a few weeks ago and came home with a 73.
“I’d like to give Dustin a good run for it”, Day said. This is a golf course where I feel very comfortable on the greens and very comfortable in general, feel comfortable on this type of grass so I made a couple of long putts on the next two holes to settle me down and we got it to even by the turn. “Make seven birdies and you’re going to do okay”. The U.S. Open champion had three birdies on the front nine and another on the 12th, before a bogey at the next slowed his charge.
Spieth roared back from his bogey-double bogey start, holing out from a bunker for birdie at 13 and rolling in two 20-foot birdie putts to cap his round. He hit his next tee shot out of play and made triple bogey, and followed that with a double bogey with a drive into the water.
This season’s curtain-closer is taking place just a week before the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in Minnesota and the majority of this week’s field of 30 are Americans hoping to be Davis Love III’s final wildcard pick for the competition on Monday.
“I thought I played great”, the American left-hander said.
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Only Jordan Spieth, who made $12m a year ago, and Vijay Singh, who made $10.9m in 2004, have ever made more from PGA Tour events.
