PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Max Homa could not have asked for a better start Thursday in The Players Championship. His gap wedge from 137 yards spun into the hole for eagle, and he followed that with a birdie.
Four holes later, he was 2-over par in a wild round that symbolizes how the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass can take just as quickly as it gives.
Homa had one par in his opening six holes. He had only two pars on the front nine. He ran off four straight birdies late. He finished with a bogey. It added to a 71 that was far from routine.
“One of the weirder days I've ever had,” Homa said.
Strong wind with gusts approaching 20 mph in the morning didn't help. A brief delay from a downpour led to more adjustments. And the Pete Dye design on a normal day is no picnic because of all the water and so many intimidating shots.
Homa wasn't alone.
“Overall, it was a roller coaster type of day,” said Tony Finau, who had four straight birdies followed by four straight bogeys and finally settled down for a 69.
“I was cruising early, and then just got punched in the mouth in the middle of the round with a bunch of bogeys, kind of jumped on the bogey train,” Finau said. “Really happy with the poise I had to just finish off where I started.”
Max Greyserman also got in on the act. He was tied for the lead at one point by opening with five birdies in seven holes and making the turn in 31.
Then he missed the fairway and made bogey on No. 10. He hit a tree on the par-5 11th and made bogey. He went from the bunker to the water on No. 12 and made bogey. And then he found the water on the par-3 13th and made double bogey. Back to even par, just like that.
Greyserman wound up with a 73, not awful on a day when five players from the morning wave failed to break 80. It just felt awful after starting with five birdies.
Homa's undoing was a double bogey on the 12th from the right trees, which he barely got back out to the fairway, and missing a 3-foot putt to make double bogey on No. 15. Coming after that sensational start, it was tough to take between the ears.
“You really have to have conversations with yourself that you’ve got to start over,” Homa said. “Pretty upset, and you’ve just got to remind yourself that it wasn’t that far off. This is a very hard golf course, so it’s nice to make some good swings and make some good putts to get going in the other direction, but that morning was very tricky.”
Tommy Fleetwood also finished with a 69 that left him wondering how good or how bad it could have been.
He blistered a 9-wood from an upslope to 30 feet for eagle on the par-5 16th, holed a 25-foot birdie putt on the island-green 17th and hit his approach from 187 yards to 10 feet for birdie on the 18th. He also briefly was tied for the lead with another birdie on the par-5 second.
“A complete bonus of a stretch, but it was really good golf through that point,” he said.
And then?
“A bit rubbish,” he said of three bogeys in a four-hole stretch toward the end.
Such is Sawgrass.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Tommy Fleetwood of England reacts to his tee shot on the 12th hole during the first round of The Players Championship golf tournament Thursday, March 12, 2026, in Ponte Bedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Max Greyserman watches his shot on the 9th hole during the first round of The Players Championship golf tournament Thursday, March 12, 2026, in Ponte Bedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Tony Finau hits out of the sand on the 11th hole during the first round of The Players Championship golf tournament Thursday, March 12, 2026, in Ponte Bedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — All six crew members of a KC-135 refueling aircraft supporting operations against Iran are dead, the U.S. military said Friday, after their plane crashed in western Iraq.
The U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said the crash followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace,” and that the other plane landed safely.
The crash brings the U.S. death toll in Operation Epic Fury to at least 13 service members, seven of whom were killed in combat. About 140 U.S. service members have been injured, including eight severely, the Pentagon said earlier this week.
Here’s what is known so far about the tanker, which is the fourth publicly acknowledged U.S. aircraft to crash during the war against Iran:
The U.S. Central Command said all six crew members on board the crashed KC-135 have been confirmed dead. It said the circumstances of the crash are under investigation but that the loss of the aircraft was “not due to hostile or friendly fire.”
A U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the developing situation, said the other plane involved was also a KC-135. Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., wrote on X that the other plane landed safely in Israel.
Yang said it would be rare for a refueling tanker to be downed by enemy fire because such operations are usually conducted in the rear of combat zones.
The crash came after three U.S. F-15E fighter jets were mistakenly downed last week by friendly Kuwaiti fire.
The KC-135 Stratotanker is a U.S. Air Force aircraft used to refuel other planes in midair, allowing them to travel longer distances and maintain operations longer without landing. The plane is also used to transport wounded personnel during medical evacuations or conduct surveillance missions, according to military experts.
Based on the same design as the Boeing 707 passenger plane, the tanker has been in service for more than 60 years, supporting the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps as well as allied aircraft, according to an Air Force description. The aging plane is set to be gradually phased out as more of the next-generation KC-46A Pegasus tankers enter service.
Despite upgrades over the years, the KC-135s’ age has fueled concern about their reliability and durability.
“The last of these planes were produced in the 1960s,” said Yang Uk, a security expert at South Korea’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies. He added that the transition to the KC-46A has progressed more slowly than expected.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the Air Force last year had 376 KC-135s, including 151 on active duty, 163 in the Air National Guard and 62 in the Air Force Reserve.
A basic KC-135 crew has three people: a pilot, co-pilot and boom operator. Nurses and medical technicians are added in aeromedical evacuation missions.
Refueling typically happens at the back of the plane, where the boom operator is located. A fuel boom is lowered to connect with fighters, bombers or other aircraft. On many of the planes, the boom operator works lying face down while looking out of a window on the underside of the plane.
Some KC-135s can also refuel planes from pods on their wings. The tankers also have room to carry cargo or passengers if needed.
Refueling tankers could play an increasingly important role if the Iran war drags on, as U.S. aircraft may need to fly longer missions to pursue Iranian forces retreating deeper into the country, said Yang.
KC-135s have previously been involved in several fatal accidents. The most recent occurred on May 3, 2013, when a KC-135R crashed after takeoff south of Chaldovar, Kyrgyzstan, while supporting the war in Afghanistan.
In that crash, the crew experienced problems with the plane’s rudder, according to a U.S. Air Force investigation. While they struggled to stabilize the plane, the tail section broke away and the plane exploded midair, killing all three crewmembers onboard.
The most serious mid-air collision involving the plane happened in 1966, when a B-52 bomber carrying nuclear bombs struck a tanker near Palomares, Spain.
The accident caused the tanker to crash, killing four onboard. The disaster led to an extensive decontamination effort to clean up nuclear material dispersed when conventional explosives in the hydrogen bombs detonated after hitting the ground.
Schreck reported from Bangkok. AP writers Ben Finley and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed.
FILE - A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refueling tanker aircraft takes off from the Kadena Air Base airfield in Kadena town, west of Okinawa, southern Japan, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, File)
FILE - A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft performs a flyover during the national anthem before an NCAA college football game between Central Florida and Georgia Tech, Sept. 24, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)
