That Way Lies Madness

The first day of a primary is usually a bit ordinary -- sudden names pop up at the leaderboard, one or two storylines display up that we have quite a lot forgotten with the aid of the stop of the weekend, and so on. It's came about a lot that, in some twisted way, we have learned to count on the sudden.

But Thursday at the PGA become simply a piece too weird for my tastes.

Granted, there had been a few matters we expected. For example:

• Rory played well but streaky -- a stretch of bad play sandwiched between two stretches of very good play.
• Tiger played a bit worse than we expected after Wednesday's practice, but we didn't expect anything spectacular because he hasn't had much preparation time.
• We had some of the customary unexpected players at the top. While guys like Kevin Chappell and Edoardo Molinari are definitely good players, we wouldn't expect them at the top of the leaderboard on the first day.

However... after that, things got a bit weirder than usual:

• Although Luke Donald struggled down the stretch, he (-1), Ian Poulter (-3), and Lee Westwood (-6, tied for the lead) suddenly started playing like they wanted to get on the Ryder Cup team!
• Matt Kuchar had to withdraw before the round with back problems, while Jason Dufner was forced to WD after 10 holes from his back problems. That's two potentially big hits to the American Ryder Cup team, especially since Duff has no idea when he'll be able to play again.
• Jim Furyk (-5) and Tom Watson (+1) played extremely well at Valhalla despite being relatively short hitters on a long course.
• Jason Day posted -2 despite some serious health struggles this year. I certainly didn't expect that!
• And while Henrik Stenson posted better than he has this year (-4) and Rickie Fowler once again put up a good score (-2), a number of players I expected to do better didn't. Louis Oosthuizen, Justin Rose, Sergio, Bubba and Martin Kaymer could do no better than -1; Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott could do no better than E. Charl Schwartzel, Graeme McDowell, Ryan Moore and Keegan Bradley didn't even break par.

What's going on here?

Granted, we have only visible one day of play. Granted, once the draw has been flipped these days, things should activate their heads. And granted, bad weather is anticipated for nowadays and possibly the relaxation of the match. I'll provide you all of that.

Still, that is shaping up to be one extraordinary principal. But for the reason that the whole yr has been a chunk bizarre -- after all, it is the Tour's first wraparound season -- I guess I genuinely should not be amazed.

I marvel if I'll be more amazed when trendy round is executed?