ST. LOUIS — Four hours from the small Kansas hometown where he grew up chipping wiffle balls in the backyard, Gary Woodland delivered one of the best rounds of his 18-year PGA Tour career on Thursday, carding a 6-under 64 to grab a share of the first-round lead at the BMW Championship, the penultimate leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Woodland hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation at Bellerive Country Club in Town and Country, Missouri, and shares the clubhouse lead with a loaded group that includes back-to-back major winners Wyndham Clark and J.J. Spaun, reigning Masters champion Rory McIlroy, and five-time Tour winner Chris Gotterup, according to the PGA Tour leaderboard. Woodland's card featured five birdies and a highlight-reel eagle, holing a sand wedge from the fairway on the par-4 11th.

"When you see the crowd jump up and down — that's definitely a bonus," Woodland said of the shot, according to Golf Channel.

A homecoming, and a new job

Woodland grew up in Topeka and played college golf at the University of Kansas, and Thursday's round arrived four days after he was named the fourth and final captain's assistant for Brandt Snedeker's U.S. Presidents Cup team, which faces the Internationals next month at Medinah. It's Woodland's first turn on a U.S. leadership staff since serving as a Ryder Cup vice captain at Bethpage Black last year.

"Gary has earned tremendous respect from his peers through the way he competes, leads and represents the game," Snedeker said in a statement announcing the appointment, posted by the PGA Tour.

"EIGHTEEN YEARS ON TOUR, THIS IS AS CLOSE AS I'LL EVER GET TO HOME SO THIS IS SPECIAL."

The 64 matched the exact score Woodland shot at Bellerive during the 2018 PGA Championship, where he finished tied for sixth the year before winning the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach — still his most recent major title. Woodland has been candid about the ordeal that followed: a September 2023 craniotomy to remove a benign brain lesion, and a PTSD diagnosis tied to the recovery that he has said still brings him to tears on the course. He snapped his winless drought dating to that 2019 major this past April, capturing the Texas Children's Houston Open.

Entering the week 31st in FedExCup points, Woodland's fast start projects him into 12th place, which would put him on track to qualify for next week's Tour Championship at East Lake for the first time since his major-winning 2019 season. The 72-hole BMW Championship continues through Sunday, with the top 50 in points advancing to East Lake, where the FedExCup title and a $10 million bonus are on the line.