Gove's summer struggles continue in Thursday 73

Coming into this week's Travelers Championship, Jeff Gove had missed four consecutive cuts. He had missed eight of ten of the year, with a high finish of T46. Needless to say, his prospects of keeping his PGA Tour card for 2014 seemed bleak.

That didn't change much on Thursday at TPC River Highlands.

Gove struggled to give himself makeable birdie putts on the sub-6,900-yard par-70 track, not good on a day that saw Charley Hoffman's 61 and Hunter Mahan's 62, and stumbled home with a 3-over 73 that included bogeys on two of his last three holes. With the cut line residing at even par after the first round, and looking like it will fall at 1-under, Gove is in need of a sizzling second round if he wants to end his streak of weekend misses.

Gove didn't drive the ball poorly, but he just had a hard time getting his ball close to the pin. The day was summed up best on the par-5 sixth, his 15th hole of the day. After finding the middle of the fairway with his drive and laying up into a perfect spot 86 yards from the hole, Gove had a chance to stick it close and make birdie to get it back to even par. Instead, his ball flew almost 40 feet past the hole, and he did well just to two-putt for par.

He drove it into the rough on the par-4 seventh and made bogey after hitting his approach into even thicker rough left of the green, and he failed to get up-and-down from just left of the green on the par-3 eighth. The opening 73 left him a distant 12 strokes back of Hoffman.

After the round, Gove was seen at the short game practice area, working on mid-length putting and short chipping. Still, even if he improves a bit on Friday, it may be the all-too-familiar case of too little, too late.