FORT WORTH, Texas — The first round of the Charles Schwab Classic is in the books, and John Pak leads the field with a score of seven under par.

Pak, 26, was born in Scotch Plains, N.J., and is looking for his first win on the PGA Tour and has one top-25 finish this season, a tie for 17th at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld.

Pak talked about his thoughts on his bogey-free first-round performance.

“A solid 8 out of 10. Yeah, I hit the ball well. I judged it really well when I did miss the fairway and kind of just made sure to leave myself in the right spots. The putting was the best I’ve had all year. So, yeah, I’m pretty happy about it,” Pak said.

Knicks superfan

Pak had a late night Wednesday watching the New York Knicks’ historic collapse against the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Teams trailing by 14 or more points with under 2:50 left in the game had been 0-970 until the Pacers pulled off the comeback.

“Thankfully the Knicks aren’t playing tonight, so I won’t be stressed about that. I didn’t sleep well after that loss last night. I’m going to recover, do a little stretching, and then maybe watch the Thunder game later tonight,” Pak said. “I’m a die-hard Knicks fan, and that was historically one of the worst losses I’ve ever seen in my life. There was a fire lit under me, yeah, this morning. I was a little pissed off about that.”

There was a logjam at second place with nine golfers scoring four under par in their opening round.

Horned Frogs on the course

A couple of Horned Frogs were on the course Thursday, including Tom Hoge, who played at TCU from 2007-2011, and Hayden Springer, with both finishing 1-over par.

Spring played for TCU from 2015 to 2019, and was part of the 2019 TCU Big 12 championship team. Both sit in 74th place after their opening-round performance.

Scheffler watch

The favorite heading into the tournament, Scottie Scheffler had a strong first round, finishing two under par, good for a tie for 20th place.

Scheffler said he put himself in a good position despite struggling to get on the fairway consistently.

“It was a challenging day. I didn’t hit the ball in the fairway a lot. Around this golf course, you have to be in the fairway. I did a good job of posting a score, and hopefully, I get out tomorrow in some softer conditions and take advantage of that.”

Scheffler hasn’t won at Colonial in his career, but has three top-five finishes in his past three appearances.

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