The BMW Championship started with a flyover from two F-18 fighter jets, the kind of spectacle reserved for NFL games, and here they were buzzing the first tee box before 9:30 in the morning Thursday.

Members of the Western Golf Association, the tournament’s organizer, and Caves Valley Golf Club heralded the beginning of the first round with opening remarks and applause as the J.K. Wadley Trophy sat to the side in a fancy case.

Once the pomp was complete, J.T. Poston, the No. 42 player in the world, walked to the tee to get things underway — without a playing partner. After Sepp Straka withdrew from the tournament due to a family matter, the field for the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs dropped to 49. And because Poston drew the opening 9:21 a.m. tee time, he got the option to play the course by himself. There was no need for a noncompeting marker, oftentimes a club member, because there would be no twosome to play into in front of him. Just lush green fairways and slick, undulating greens.

When the tournament was last here in 2021, seven players finished 20 under par or better after four rounds, with Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau tied at the end of regulation at 27 under. They needed six playoff holes for Cantlay to be crowned the winner.

Entering this week, players made clear this year would be different. Caves Valley underwent an extensive renovation in the summer of 2023, lengthening a handful of holes. A strain of bentgrass was planted to stand up to the sticky humidity of a Maryland summer, and a new irrigation was installed to ensure the course would stay dry — and fast.

“The greens have got a bit of firmness to them,” world No. 2 Rory McIlroy said. ”You’ve got to put the ball in play.”

What was once a 7,542-yard par-72 now measures as a 7,601-yard par-70 thanks to the added yardage and two par-5s playing this week as 500-plus-yard par-4s.

The first hole, previously a straightaway 365-yard par-4, now stretches to 481 yards. Things started pretty well for Poston there. He bombed a drive 343 yards down the left side of the sloping hole that just found the first cut of rough. His low-flighted second shot landed just under 42 feet away. Although he needed to navigate a large hump in the line of his birdie attempt, he got the putt to within 16 inches for an easy par.

On the second, the first of those monstrous par-4s, he drove it into the middle of the fairway but found trouble on the approach, his ball landing in the right rough in front of a greenside bunker. That prompted him to swing his arms back and forth to practice his takeaway and follow-through, a moment to recalibrate familiar to any weekend hacker.

With a wedge in his hands and little green to work with, Poston played a beautiful flop shot that landed just on the putting surface and rolled to 7 inches away. Another par.

His first good look at birdie came on the third, a downhill, 197-yard par-3 over brush and a small creek. His shot to a front-right pin landed within 15 feet. But his putt, a left-to-right breaker, missed on the low side. A third par.

And so it went for the early part of the front nine. There were a few more times Poston put himself in tough spots — such as the fourth, when his second shot into the par-5 was about a foot away from a steep-faced greenside bunker, and the fifth, when his approach landed in the fringe, leaving a delicate chip — but he continued to salvage pars.

Fans were just starting to trickle to this part of the course as Poston plotted his way around. In a few spots, maybe a dozen spectators gathered behind the ropes to watch the 32-year-old North Carolina native, many seeking the refuge of the shade provided by the tall trees lining the fairways on a humid August day.

“Go get ’em, J.T.” a father with his young son said as Poston walked off the fifth.

The galleries continued to grow as more fans passed through the gates, arriving to find the group of one that opened competitive play was moving at a brisk pace.

“Six holes in an hour, that’s gotta feel nice,” one fan remarked as Poston walked off the green of the 220-yard par-3 with his sixth straight par.

“Moving along, huh?” another said.

Then Poston found his form. His approach shot from the first cut of rough on 7 landed on an upslope and trickled to the same level as the pin about 17 feet away. He drained it for a birdie.

Next he played a beautiful approach on 8 that landed a few feet beyond the pin and spun back to 15 inches for a kick-in birdie.

After a par on the ninth, he made the turn just before 11 a.m. with a piece of the lead.

The back nine was much less forgiving.

Poston recovered from a bogey on 10 with a textbook birdie on 11, playing a pitch from the fairway of the short par-4 guarded by water to inside 4 feet.

“Pick it up; it’s good,” a fan yelled from a pavilion on the other side of the lake.

The 12th, however, kicked off a stretch of four bogeys in five holes.

His drive on the 521-yard par-4 found the first of two bunkers on the left side, and the steep lip allowed few options other than to lay up with water all along the right side and a deep bunker fronting the putting surface.

He appeared to grumble the hole should still play as a par-5. “If you get in that one, it’s doable,” he said to his caddy, Aaron Flener, while pointing at the closer sand trap of the pair.

On holes 14-16, he got on the green in regulation but was done in each time by a three-putt — two of those the result of speedy downhill first attempts that slipped by the hole and came to rest a little too far away for comfort. And the par misses were reason for frustration.

Just as quickly as Poston got hot, his putter went cold and his round started to go a bit sideways. He now sat at 2 over.

He ground out pars on the closing holes, where fans were starting to fill the looming grandstands erected for this week. On 17, a 245-yard par-3 over a pond, he knocked a 50-foot putt from the front of the green a few feet shy of the cup.

And on 18, a steep 470-yard par-4 back up the hill with a stream running down the right side, his drive found a gnarly lie in the rough, making it hard for Poston to get his approach all the way to the putting surface. He played a beautiful pitch for his third to inside 4 feet and knocked it in.

The round was over at 12:52 p.m. after just over 3 1/2 hours.

Poston shook my hand and those of the scorer and the standard-bearer carrying a sign for fans to follow his score.

“Thank y’all for coming with me. I enjoyed it,” he told us.

A BMW SUV — what else? — was waiting on the other side of the grandstand to take Poston and Flener to the clubhouse so he could sign his scorecard. He posted 33-39 for a first-round 72.

There were times when Poston made it look effortless, and there were times when his touch and feel were brilliant. Then there were times when the fast-paced greens gave Caves Valley teeth.

But the golf around here is supposed to be much tougher now, even for the pros.