Van Pelt - ranked 104th heading into the FedEx Cup play-offs opener on Thursday - missed five consecutive cuts in February through to March - the Waste Management Phoenix Open, AT&T Pebble Beach National, Northern Trust Open, The Honda Classic and the Valspar Championship.
The American also failed to make it past the second round at the Shell Houston Open, Wells Fargo Championship and the RBC Canadian Open.
But the 39-year-old has slowly worked himself into form, tying for seventh at the John Deere Classic and 14th at the Wyndham Championship last week.
Van Pelt continued his resurgence with a six-under-par 65 to be one stroke clear after round one at the Ridgewood Country Club on Thursday.
"As poorly as I played at the start of the year, I'm just kind of glad to be here," Van Pelt said. "Things have been trending in a lot better direction.
"So I felt fortunate to be here with the position I was in three months ago.
"I just felt like if I kept doing what I was doing, hopefully I would at least get to next week and then kind of cross that bridge when I got there."
Van Pelt started the round with three successive birdies, while he added another at the 16th hole and an eagle at the 17th to be ahead of Cameron Tringale, Hunter Mahan, Charles Howell III, Brendon de Jonge, Ben Martin, Brendon Todd, Jim Furyk and Paul Casey heading into day two.
"Through the middle I played well but I just didn't convert on a couple of opportunities," he said.
"Probably the key was on the 15 - I hit a poor shot but then made par. I then went three-three on 16 and 17 to finish the round."