PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — For the better part of a year and a half, Camilo Villegas has been lost. Maybe this week at the Honda Classic, the scene of his most recent moment of golf glory, he will find himself again.
Villegas, the popular former University of Florida player and native of Colombia, got off to a strong start in yesterday’s opening round of the Honda Classic, shooting a 6-under-par 64 to steal the spotlight from the game’s two biggest stars — world No. 1 Rory McIlroy and No. 2 Tiger Woods.
Villegas takes a one-shot lead into today’s second round, leading Rickie Fowler, Branden Grace and Graham DeLaet by one shot and several others, including Dustin Johnson and Lee Westwood, by two.
Woods and defending champion McIlroy shot even-par 70 to stand six shots behind.
As for Villegas, whose last victory was at the 2010 Honda Classic, yesterday’s round — punctuated by an eagle on the par-5 18th hole — came out of nowhere.
“I just played bad the last year-and-a-half,’’ Villegas said. “It wasn’t as fun. The game was kicking my butt a little bit.’’
Villegas finished 144th on the PGA Tour money list last year, missing 10 cuts in 25 events and not posting a single top-10 finish. That cost him his PGA Tour card and forced him to try to regain it at Qualifying School. When he failed to make it through Q School, Villegas left himself at the mercy of gaining entries to tournaments via sponsor’s exemptions.
He got into all three events he played this season — the Humana Challenge, the Farmers Insurance Open and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am — on sponsor’s exemptions and hardly took advantage, finishing in a tie for 47th at Humana and missing the cut in the latter two.
Villegas, who lives in nearby Jupiter, Fla., is playing this week as on a past-champion exemption and, through one round, is taking full advantage.
“I know who I am. I know I belong out here. I know how good I can be. That’s why you’re just going to keep your head up and keep working..’’
McIlroy, the No. 1 ranked player in the world and defending champion, felt the opposite. He sounded down after shooting 70 — particularly because it ended with a bogey on the par-5 18th hole.
McIlroy, who entered yesterday having played only three rounds of tournament golf thanks to a missed cut in Abu Dhabi and his first-round exit at last week’s Match Play, said he “saw enough pretty good golf out there to be positive going into the next few days.
“Hopefully, I can go out [today] and shoot a good one, put myself in position for the weekend,” he said.