"I feel like I've been playing some decent golf for a while and scoring poorly, and to kind of see the scores come a little bit more is really promising."

Rai, 29, an Englishman who's won twice on the DP World Tour (old European Tour), also is seeking his first PGA Tour win, and also went bogey-free in the opening round, with four birdies on the first five holes of the front nine.

He's most known on the PGA Tour for wearing two golf gloves.

He'll need two hands to hoist the Rocket Mortgage Classic trophy Sunday night, if this continues.

"I felt like I drove it well off the tee, which is important any week, but very important this week. The rough is pretty thick in areas," said Rai, who hit 12 of 14 fairways.

"Really good all-round start. Good all-around game, as well."

A shot back of Rai, and tied with Young, was Dunlap, who could've been in much better shape if not for speedbumps on his back nine.

It's not easy to win on the PGA Tour, though Dunlap, 20, made it look easy when he won The American Express earlier this year to become the first amateur to win on the PGA Tour since Phil Mickelson more than 30 years ago.

Given the two-year PGA Tour exemption that comes with winning, Dunlap had no choice but to leave Alabama and turn professional shortly after that victory. He's missed five of 13 cuts since, and has just two top-15 finishes, but one of those came recently, a T12 at the Memorial earlier this month.

He was scorching early Thursday, at 7 under at one point, after making seven birdies in a nine-hole stretch. He hit his first 13 greens in regulation and was on cruise control. But the short par-3 fifth quickly deflated his tires, as he pulled his tee shot left into the greenside bunker. He short-sided himself, leaving an impossible bunker shot that he blasted long. He failed to get up and down and made double bogey. Dunlap followed that with a bogey at the par-4 sixth before steadying the ship with birdie at the par-5 eighth.

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