Ryder Cup hopefuls off to fast start

Both Ryder Cup captains — Tom Watson and Paul McGinley — will announce their three captain’s picks on Tuesday. The US already has nine team members who automatically qualified on points. The nine automatic European qualifiers will be determined this weekend, both with this tournament and the Italian Open on the European Tour.

“I know it’s a big week. I know I need a really good, consistent week to show [Watson] my game is there. I think it’s there,” said Simpson, who finished 15th on the Ryder Cup points list, which ended at the PGA Championship. “I’m hoping that I can have four good rounds. A lot of other guys are playing great golf right now. Brandt [Snedeker] is playing well, Bill Haas is playing well.”

Bradley, who opened with 65, was 13th on the Ryder Cup points list, but most assume he’s a lock to be one of Watson’s three picks. Others expected to be under consideration include Ryan Moore (who opened with 72), Snedeker (72), Haas (67), and Hunter Mahan, who followed his Barclays win with a 73.

The European side is more confusing, because they use two points lists: One for European Tour performance, and another based on world rankings. Neither Poulter nor Donald would be in off the automatic lists — they’re close — so they’ve got to keep playing well.

“I’m not thinking about Ryder Cup,” said Poulter (and we’ll let the readers decide if that’s a truthful statement). “Obviously it’s on everyone’s radar, because everyone wants to play in it. And I want to play in it as well. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Poulter was the star of the 2012 Ryder Cup, sparking Europe’s comeback win at Medinah. In four previous Ryder Cup appearances, Poulter owns a 12-3-0 record, leading many to believe that if he’s not one of the nine automatic selections, McGinley will make him one of his three.

When Rory McIlroy opened with two straight birdies Friday morning, and three in the first four holes, he threatened to run away with the tournament the way he’s been playing, right? Not exactly. The top-ranked player in the world struggled over his final 11 holes, making four bogeys and settling for a 70.

“I got off to a great start. Little disappointed I couldn’t keep it going after the first few holes,” McIlroy said. “But it was tricky out there. The wind was up. The greens are firmer than they’ve ever been since I’ve been coming here.”

McIlroy, who won here in 2012, had a three-tournament win streak snapped last week at the Barclays, where he tied for 22d. He was seen working on the range for an extended stretch after his pro-am on Thursday — “Just working on alignment and ball position” – and didn’t seem too concerned after his opening round.

“My game’s in decent shape,” he said. “I holed a couple nice putts. I missed a couple. Overall, shooting something under par today isn’t a bad start.”

Defending champion Henrik Stenson was not thrilled with his game (“Average to awful” is how he put it), especially after he needed three swipes to get out of a greenside bunker at No. 18, which led to a closing bogey and a 70.

Stenson, who shot 67-63-66-66 in winning by two shots last year, holed a bunker shot at the 17th hole in the final round to secure his victory. After not doing as well on Friday, he wondered if something was amiss.

“I don’t know if anyone knows if they changed the sand a bit from last year? I was kind of under that impression. More sand in the bunkers, because I hit a 3-wood in the pro-am that plugged in the cross bunkers on [No.] 7, and that’s not normal,” Stenson said. “I don’t know what they’ve done differently, but I feel like something has been . . . they’ve put more sand in the bunkers.”

Tom Brodeur would know — he’s been the only course superintendent in TPC Boston’s history, and was hired before it even opened — and he said the bunkers have not changed from last year.

“Same sand, no additional sand,” Brodeur explained in a text message. “Wet last year, tends to firm up. Super dry this year, so more powder like.”

That’s of little consolation to Stenson, who is 66th in the points race and wants to jump into the top 30 so he can have a chance to defend his title — both titles, actually — at the Tour Championship. No player has won back-to-back DBCs.

Almost every caddie working on Friday wore a plain black hat or visor with an orange ribbon attached, in honor of the wife of one of their colleagues, Lance Bennett, who caddies for Matt Kuchar. Angela Bennett died suddenly on Wednesday morning. Many players’ hats also featured the orange ribbon, since orange was Angela Bennett’s favorite color. Kuchar, with Brian Reed on the bag, shot 69 . . . When’s the last time Brendon de Jonge opened a tournament round with back-to-back triple bogeys? He did that on Friday, then played his final 16 holes in even par to shoot a 77, almost the highest score from the 93-player field (Ryo Ishikawa had 78). De Jonge pulled his approach on No. 10 (where his round started) into a hazard, which led to the first triple. At the par-3 11th, he found the massive bunker fronting the green, needed two to get out, left his fourth shot short, then chipped on and made a 4-footer for triple No. 2. De Jonge eagled the 18th hole, then made nine pars on the front nine . . . There were seven eagles in the first round: five on the par-5 18th, one on the par-5 seventh (Billy Horschel), and one on the par-4 fourth (Matt Jones, who chipped in).

Michael Whitmer can be reached at mwhitmer@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeWhitmer.