First-Round Notes – Thursday, February 27, 2025

Weather: Mostly cloudy. High of 80. Winds SSE at 5-10 mph.

First-Round Leaderboard

Pos.        Player                    R1

1              Jake Knapp           59 (-12)

T2           Daniel Berger      63 (-8)

T2           Russell Henley     63 (-8)

T2           Sami Valimaki      63 (-8)

Leading Asian/Aussie Scores

T16         Rico Hoey             66 (-5)

T28         Ryan Fox               67 (-4)

T48         Sungjae Im           68 (-3)

T48         Karl Vilips             68 (-3)

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Jake Knapp (1st/59)

15th sub-60 score in PGA TOUR history

• 14th different player (15th time) to shoot a sub-60 round on the PGA TOUR (Jim Furyk has a 58 and 59)
• First sub-60 score on the PGA TOUR in 238 days since the 2024 John Deere Classic (Hayden Springer/59/R1)
• Cards his low 18-hole score on the PGA TOUR in his 116th round (previous best: 63/R3/2024 Mexico Open at VidantaWorld)
• Cards the low 18-hole score in Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches history (previous best: 61/Matt Jones/R1/2021; Brian Harman/R2/2012)
• Previous low 18-hole score of the 2025 season by any player on the PGA TOUR was 61 (Aldrich Potgieter/R2/Mexico Open at VidantaWorld)
• 30-year-old seeks his second win on the PGA TOUR in his 35th start (last win: 2024 Mexico Open at VidantaWorld)
• Marks first 18-hole lead/co-lead on the PGA TOUR (previous best 18-hole position: T2/two times; most recent: 2025 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am/finished T33)

• Largest 18-hole lead (4) of the 2025 season (previous: 2 strokes/Ludvig Åberg/2025 Farmers Insurance Open); the last 18-hole lead of four strokes or more came at the 2024 TOUR Championship (5 strokes/Scottie Scheffler); the last instance in a tournament without Starting Strokes was the 2024 WM Phoenix Open (5 strokes/Nick Taylor)
• Matches the largest 18-hole lead in Cognizant Classic history (previous instance: Mike Sullivan/1987/TPC Eagle Trace)

• Finished T4 in his tournament debut at the Cognizant Classic in 2024
• In seven previous starts this season, he has two top-25 finishes and sits No. 61 in the FedExCup standings (best tournament finish in 2025: T17/The Genesis Invitational)

Sub-60 Rounds:

Sub-60 Rounds: Statistical Breakdown

*All-time PGA TOUR Record for Most Birdies in a Round                         >some final putt distances are best estimates

Miscellaneous notes

• 2014 Cognizant Classic winner Russell Henley, the highest ranked player in the field by Official World Golf Ranking (No. 17), posted bogey-free 63 and is one of three players T2 at 8-under along with Daniel Berger and Sami Valimaki.
• Past winners of the Cognizant Classic Rickie Fowler (2017) and Keith Mitchell (2019) each sit T5 at 7-under.
• Making his tournament debut at the Cognizant Classic, Jordan Spieth opens with 6-under 65 and sits T11. Spieth birdied all three holes of the “Bear Trap” (Nos. 15-17), becoming the 14th player to make birdie or better on each hole in a round.
• Amateur Luke Clanton (T28) shoots 4-under 67. If Clanton makes the cut this week, he will earn PGA TOUR membership via PGA TOUR University Accelerated. Clanton entered the week with 19 points in the program and a made cut would earn him the one point needed to reach the 20-point threshold for membership, which he could accept in June 2025.
• Today’s 68.62 field stroke average is the lowest in a round at the Cognizant Classic since the event moved to PGA National Resort (The Champion) in 2007. It is the third-lowest single-round field stroke average in Cognizant Classic history.

Lowest Single-Round Field Stroke Averages at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches