Belgium’s Thomas Detry holed a chip for a closing birdie to shoot 9–under-par 63 at Spyglass Hill and capture the first-round lead at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Thursday in Pebble Beach, Calif.
Detry’s birdie at the par-4 18th was his third in a row to close a 6–under 30 on the back nine.
It pushed him just ahead of Patrick Cantlay, who set the pace earlier in the afternoon with a bogey-free, 8–under 64 at Spyglass Hill.
The 80 players in the signature event’s field are playing one round apiece at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill Golf Course to open the tournament.
They will proceed to Pebble Beach for the weekend rounds without a 36-hole cut as they vie for shares of a $20 million purse.
France’s Matthieu Pavon—who earned his first PGA Tour victory last week at the Farmers Insurance Open in order to qualify—fired the low round of the day at Pebble Beach, a 7–under 65, putting him alone in third place.
Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo (Spyglass Hill) and South Korea’s Si Woo Kim (Pebble Beach) are tied for fourth at 6 under, and Rickie Fowler (Spyglass Hill) is tied for sixth with Collin Morikawa (Pebble Beach) at 5 under.
Detry missed the green at No. 18 and had an uphill lie for his third shot. After a smooth-swinging pitch shot, he watched his ball track straight into the hole.
“I felt pretty comfortable I would put it within 3 feet, to be honest,” Detry said. “And it rolled nicely, just trickled in the hole. It was lovely to watch.”
Detry also opened his round with a three-birdie run before carding his lone bogey of the day at the par-3 fifth, which he erased with a birdie at the par-5 seventh.
The 31-year-old has never won on the PGA Tour, but he came close last week at the Farmers. He held the lead during the third round but a water ball knocked him out of the top spot; he finished tied for 20th.
“I’m not gonna lie, last weekend was a tough pill to swallow,” Detry said. “I played some great golf and I didn’t really have the finish that I wanted to. I was in contention the whole weekend except the last five or six holes, I think. So I’m happy that ... I didn’t let it affect me.”
Cantlay also had a chip-in on Thursday. He started on the back nine and holed out for his first birdie at the par-4 13th. But he began a hot streak starting at No. 17, making four straight birdies.
“My short game was really sharp today and made a bunch of those midrange putts to keep the momentum going throughout the round,” Cantlay said.
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy was 6 under through 14 holes at Spyglass Hill to hold the lead at one point.
But not only did McIlroy proceed to make three straight bogeys at Nos. 6–8, he was also assessed a two-stroke penalty for an improper drop at the par-5 seventh, turning his score there into an 8 and pushing him back to a mere 1–under 71.
His mistake was to drop his ball one club length away from the line from the hole to where the ball lay.
“Unbeknownst to me the rule changed in January 2023 where you used to be able to come back online, take a club length either side,” McIlroy said. “That was changed in 2019 to be able to do that. I wasn’t aware that that rule was changed again in 2023.”
