Lowry digs deep as Horschel battles alligator and Knapp fires 59

Billy Horschel takes on an alligator in the Cognizant Classic

Shane Lowry didn't have to do a Billy Horschel and shoo an alligator away from fans, but he did have to dig deep to fire a five-under 66 to keep Jake Knapp in his sights at the Cognizant Classic in Florida.

As Knapp became just the 14th man to break 60 on the PGA Tour, bringing the once feared Champion Course at PGA National to its knees with a bogey-free 12 under 59 to lead by four, Lowry made six birdies and a bogey to share 16th place after round one.

The world number 18 knows it's a marathon, not a sprint, and while he didn't finish the round as he would have liked, he birdied the first, third, seventh, 10th, 13th, and 14th to head into the dangerous Bear Trap holes from the 15th to the 17th on six-under.

He two-putted from long range for his par-three at the 15th but found the water from a fairway bunker at the 16th and did brilliantly to get up and down from 134 yards for a bogey, knocking in an eight-footer.

He struggled again for par at the short 17th, but after leaving his recovery chip 22 feet short in the fringe, he holed the par putt.

The Offaly man couldn't birdie the 18th after bunkering his second shot, but his 66 left him within striking distance of an outstanding Knapp.

“It's just one of those days where everything was kind of clicking,” Knapp said after finishing one shot off the Tour scoring record of 58, set by Jim Furyk in the final round of the 2016 Travelers Championship. 

Seamus Power made four birdies and two bogeys in a two-under 69 that left him 76th, just outside the projected cut line.

But Knapp’s round was the talk of the locker room, and a score, before some recent course changes, that would have been good enough to beat the winning aggregate in 12 of the 18 Cognizant Classics held at PGA National and force a playoff in another two.

“It doesn't surprise me,” said Russell Henley, who shot an eight-under 63 to share second with Finn Sami Valimaki and Daniel Berger. “You know, the place is overseeded now, and they've taken out some bunkers and made a couple of changes. 

“So when the wind’s down like this, I think is definitely gettable. But it doesn't matter what the condition is; anytime you shoot 59, it's great and unbelievable. So, yeah, good job to him.”

Horschel also praised Knapp but felt the rough was not long enough to punish wayward tee shots.

But he also made headlines for stopping a five-foot-long alligator heading into the gallery at the sixth.

The Florida native had just putted out on the green when he first noticed the fans stepping back.

The police officer with Horschel’s group ran over to intervene, but after he failed, Horschel grabbed his 60-degree wedge and shooed it away.

“I didn’t think about it,” Horschel said after his 66. “But good thing I did grab a 60 because I’ve got two extra ones in the locker, so if that one did become unavailable, I had two more in the locker.”

“He was going nowhere good,” Horschel added. “So, I just went over there and helped the cop. 

“As Cam (Young) said before I went over there, he said, ‘What was he going to do? Try to use a Taser on him?’ But I think he would have had to get a little close on that one to try and make it effective.”