Akshay Bhatia (1st/-9) equalled his career low round on the PGA TOUR with a bogey-free 9-under 63 at the Valero Texas Open; marks his fourth 63 and first since the third round of the 2023 Mexico Open at Vidanta.
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Holds the first-round lead/co-lead for the first time; previous-best position after 18 holes is T2 (2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am/finished T30).
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Bhatia is making third start at the event (MC/2021, T46/2023); previous-low round at TPC San Antonio: 68/R4/2023.
Has five top-20 finishes in nine starts this season, with a T11 at last week’s Texas Children’s Houston Open his best outing.
Has one win in 53 prior PGA TOUR starts (2023 Barracuda Championship).
After entering the week with a scoring average of 74.67 in six rounds at TPC San Antonio, Justin Lower (T2/-6) opened with a bogey-free 6-under 66 on his 35th birthday.
Marks his best round on TOUR since he posted second and third-round 66s en route to a career-best T3 finish at this season’s Mexico Open at Vidanta Making his third start at the event (MC/2022, 70th/2023).
Brendon Todd (T2/-6) has two top-10 finishes in seven starts at the Valero Texas Open (T6/2014, T8/2022); prior to his opening-round 66, previous-best score in 24 rounds at TPC San Antonio is 67 (R2/2023).
The T6 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard is his lone top-10 finish in nine starts this season.
The last of his three PGA TOUR victories came at the 2019 World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba.
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Rory McIlroy (T8/-3), the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking, opened with a 3-under 69 in his sixth start of the season.
His current streak of five starts to start the season without a top-10 is his longest such streak since 2010, his first season as a member, when he won the Wells Fargo Championship in his sixth start, earning his first career PGA TOUR title.
Two-time and defending champion Corey Conners (T17/-2) carded a 2-under 70; with a win this week, would become the first player since World War II to earn his first three wins at the same event; has made 15 consecutive cuts, tied for the fifth-longest active streak on TOUR, and is coming off a T13 at THE PLAYERS Championship.
