John Patterson's Round 1 in Catalonia was two rounds stitched together by a man who should have stopped at one. Early on he shared the TEG 11 Trophy lead, drawing level at the par-5 7th despite bogeying it. It did not hold. A quintuple-bogey 9 at the 4th, part of a stretch that bled nine shots across holes 2 to 4, was the opening notice. Then a quadruple-bogey 8 at the 10th. Then a quintuple-bogey 9 at the 13th, inside an 11-shot bleed across holes 12 to 14. Then a quadruple-bogey 8 at the 17th, for the sake of completeness. Throughout, he gave every impression of a man still working to a plan. The triple bogey at the 14th, one of the harder holes on the course, dropped him to the bottom of the Wooden Spoon race. He had gone from a share of the lead to last place in a single afternoon, signing for a gross 112. At the other end of the card, Jon Baker leads both the Trophy and the TEG 11 Green Jacket.

Gregg Williams began in the worst fashion available to him. He dropped eight shots across the first three holes. Triple bogeys at the 1st and the 2nd, then a double bogey at the par-five 3rd. Not one net par among them. The scorecard read less like a round of golf than a series of formal apologies.

The par-three 5th offered relief. By stroke index it is one of the easier holes out there. Williams made a quintuple-bogey 8. Between the opening stretch and that single hole, the day's business was concluded well before lunch.

And yet. His gross 101 was twelve shots better than the 113 he posted on his only previous visit, making it his best score at the Stadium Course through two visits. Salvaging a personal course record out of that opening is a genuine feat. It is also the clearest evidence yet of what the 113 must have looked like.