After shooting a three-over round of 74, Stephan Jaeger decided to withdraw from the John Deere Classic after the end of his opening 18 holes, and he was followed by Nicholas Lindheim just ahead of round two.
The German never looked at ease at TPC Deere Run and his 74 would have left him facing a tough task to make the cut – which has become a theme of late as he’s missed the weekend in two of his last three tournaments.
That’s very much against the run of things for Jaeger, who has a pretty solid record of making 109 cuts from 170 PGA Tour events he’s played during his career, but he’s clearly struggling of late.
As the World No.56 was certainly heading towards another missed cut at the John Deere Classic when he decided to call it quits – with no injury or illness given as a reason for his withdrawal by the PGA Tour.
Lindheim was one shot worse off than Jaeger after a first-round 75, and he withdrew just before Friday’s second round due to a back injury.
Jaeger’s withdrawal after the first round added to the five players that pulled out ahead of the tournament – Norman Xiong, Danny Walker, Aaron Baddeley, Davis Riley and Vince Covello all opted not to tee it up in the event.
The 36-year-old has three top 10s to his name this year, but just one T7 since The Masters when results have generally been below what he’d have expected.
Jaeger called it a day after finishing with two birdies and two bogeys – but one triple-bogey seven on the par-4 fourth hole did all the damage to his score.
That left him on three over and 12 shots off leader Doug Ghim after his flying 62 which contained seven birdies and an eagle.
Ghim only leads by one though after Max Homa and Austin Eckroat both shot 63s on a day generally of low scoring at TPC Deere Run.
A total of 102 players finished under par for their first round, with 83 of them breaking 70 and 16 rounds of 65 or better.
Along with a welcome return to form for Homa, Rickie Fowler was another notable name starting well as he shot one of those 65s as he looks to climb inside the crucial top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings.
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