Nothing quiet about Kuchar's first round at Cog Hill

A case of laryngitis kept Matt Kuchar from talking much after his opening round in the BMW Championship at Cog Hill.

He really didn't need to say anything, though, because his game did all the talking for him.

Kuchar, who won The Barclays to open the FedEx Cup playoff series and came into the BMW leading in points, continued his red-hot play of late by roaring to a 7-under 64 in his morning round to lead Ryan Moore by a stroke and Ian Poulter (66) by 2.

"I was driving it well. I was actually doing everything well; it felt very good," Kuchar whispered. "Last week was a little bit suspect (tied for 11th at the Deutsche Bank Championship), and this week I kind of figured some stuff out, hitting the ball solid and making some putts."

Like he needed much help to begin with.

Kuchar's 64 on Thursday was the second-best opening round of his career. He has finished inside the top 10 in six of his last nine starts and has opened with rounds of par or better in 21 of 23 starts this season.

"He's had a fantastic year," Moore said. "Certainly if not the best, one of the best at this point in time, and he's just playing good golf.

"He's always been a good putter and I think his ball striking, the stuff he's worked on, has really come around to give him enough birdie chances that he's clearly shooting good golf scores all the time now.

"He's one of those guys, he's a good enough putter - you always have to factor him in."

Moore wasn't too shabby himself, setting a back-nine record with a sizzling 29 that featured 8 birdies.

"Some days you get putts that are easy to read from 10 feet and some days you get 5-footers that have three breaks in them," Moore said. "It's weird, but I just kind of had straightforward putts."

If not for a double bogey on the first hole, Poulter may have ended up even higher on the leaderboard, but he wasn't complaining.

"Very happy," the flashy Brit said. "Nice first round; not a very nice first hole, mind you.

"Double bogey is not the way you want to start the third FedEx Cup event. I suppose any good way of looking at it is there's 71 holes to go. I bounced back pretty good."

Tied for fourth are Charlie Wi and Retief Goosen, each with 67s. For Goosen, who came into the BMW ranked 20th in FedEx Cup points, the hope is his strong play Thursday is a good omen.

"I need to start hitting a little bit better from tee to green to stay up there," he said. "I've been working my (butt) off the last three weeks trying to find something. It's just hard to get something going and feel like I've got a bit of a stress-free round out there.

"The way I'm playing now, every hole is a bit of a fight."

Last week's winner, Charley Hoffman, is among a group of 15 players tied at 1 under. Notables in that bunch include Steve Stricker, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh.

But after Thursday's opening round, all the talk centered around Kuchar, even though the player who won the 1997 U.S. Amateur at Cog Hill couldn't chime in as much as he might have liked.

One unspoken thing for sure is that Kuchar, who finished tied for 10th last year in the BMW, certainly has found himself quite the comfort zone at Cog Hill.

"Yeah, I've got good memories of this place," he said, "so it continued to go well for me today."

Enough said.

<div class="infoBox">

<h1>More Coverage</h1>

<div class="infoBoxContent">

<div class="infoArea">

<h2>Stories</h2>

<ul class="links">

<li><a href="/story/?id=406991">Tiger finds little 'Joy of Driving' on Day 1 of BMW Championship<span class="date"> [9/9/10]</span></a></li>

<li><a href="/story/?id=407050">Casual day? Not for tie-wearing Moore<span class="date"> [9/9/10]</span></a></li>

</ul>

</div>

</div>

</div>