Sebastian Garcia takes 1-stroke lead at the Australian PGA after completing weather-hit 1st round

Tied for second with 64s after completing their first rounds on Friday were Brett Rankin and Garcia’s countryman Rocco Repetto Taylor. Taylor shot 29 on his back nine which included a six-hole stretch where he had two birdies, two eagles and two birdies.

Before the storm hit, and fresh from an eight-week break after a season that included his first two tournament wins on the PGA Tour, Ryan Fox shot 67 and was among those tied for the lead among those who had finished their rounds.

The tournament is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australia and the European tour, which is starting its 2025-26 season just two weeks after Rory McIlroy won the Race to Dubai title.

Fox won this year’s Myrtle Beach Classic and Canadian Open on the PGA Tour.

Fox was level with Australian Anthony Quayle and 2024 Asia-Pacific amateur champion Ding Wenyi in a group at 4-under. Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, and fellow Australian Min Woo Lee each shot 68.

Quayle had a familiar name as caddie — Steve Williams. On the bag for 13 of Tiger Woods’ major titles, Williams also caddied for Scott when he won the Masters in 2013.

“I met him at the New Zealand Open earlier this year ... got on fairly well and I said, ‘Do you mind if we go grab a coffee afterwards, I’d love to pick your brain?‘” Quayle said after his bogey-free round Thursday. “He said ‘I’ll give you my number, I’ll come caddie for you.’”

Former British Open champion and LIV Tour regular Cameron Smith, winless in more than two years, shot 69, as did the defending champion Elvis Smylie.

Smith, who has won the Australian PGA three times and was runner-up last year, had five top-10 finishes in 13 regular LIV Golf events this season. But he missed his sixth straight cut at last week’s Saudi International in Riyadh.

Marco Penge, who won three times on the European tour this year and is the tournament’s highest-ranked player at No. 30, shot 70.

On Wednesday, the big-hitting Englishman withdrew from the pro-am and said he had been receiving physiotherapy treatment for a neck strain.

“No, it’s not great,” Penge, 27, said Wednesday at Royal Queensland. “The physios here are helping me out. I think I’ve had five physio sessions in the last 24 hours, so we’re doing everything I can to feel OK.”

There were two aces on Thursday — Kazumu Kobori’s wedge into the 17th party hole went for a hole in one before Daniel Gale won a sponsor’s car with his effort on the 11th.

McIlroy will highlight the field in next week’s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne beginning Dec. 4.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf