Birdie Kim took a solid first step toward proving her stunning US Women's Open win wasn't a fluke.
Kim, two weeks removed from her dramatic win at Cherry Hills, shot a 6-under 65 -- her LPGA career low -- to share the lead with Becky Morgan after the opening round of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic on Thursday.
Kim's 65 was three shots below her previous best on the tour.
She bogeyed her third hole of the day, then birdied seven of her final 13 holes. Six of the birdies didn't require a putt longer than 6 feet.
Kim, one of six players with that last name in the Farr field, holed an improbable sand shot on the 72nd hole of the Open to hold off amateurs Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lang, who finished tied for second.
"That gave me a lot of confidence," Kim said. "I feel free. I don't have to worry about going back to Q school.''
Kim said she was aware of the precedent set at the Corning Classic by another South Korean, her close friend Pak Se-ri. Pak has won the Classic four times and owns most of the event's scoring records, including back-to-back rounds of 61 and 63 while winning in a rout in 1998.
"She taught me a lot," Kim said, before detailing Pak's track record at Highland Meadows Golf Club. "I know that she had all those low scores at this golf course."
Morgan, from Wales, turned on the television before going to the course and saw the news about the terrorist bombings in London. Shaken, she called home to make sure her family and friends were OK before recording her second-best score of the year.
She had a bogey on No. 2 and then birdied five of the last seven holes on the front side. She twice holed birdie putts from off the green, making a 20-footer from the back fringe at No. 3, then closing out her round by rolling in a 30-footer from well off the green and below the hole at 18.
Angela Stanford and Gloria Park were tied for second at 67 and two shots back, while defending champion Meg Mallon, Young Kim and Jeong Jang were at 68.
Pressel and Lang are again among Kim's closest pursuers -- and are again grabbing a lot of attention.
The 19-year-old Lang shot a 2-under 69 in her professional debut.
"It didn't feel a whole lot different," Lang said. "I like it out here."
The 17-year-old Pressel, America's top-ranked amateur and junior, shot a 1-under 70. She asked the LPGA this week for a waiver to turn pro and play in tour events. Tour rules don't permit players to earn money in LPGA events before their 18th birthday.
Fifteen-year-old Michelle Wie shot a 1-under 70 at the John Deere Classic on Thursday, putting her on target to become the first woman in 60 years to make a cut on the US PGA Tour.
The top 70 players and ties make the cut, and there were 91 players at 1-under or better when Wie finished her first round.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias is the last woman to make a cut on the tour, at the 1945 Tucson Open. No woman played on the tour until 2003, when Annika Sorenstam teed it up at the Colonial. Sorenstam missed the cut.
Since then, Suzy Whaley and Wie have played tour events. Wie missed the cut at the 2004 Sony Open by one stroke. She played the same event this year, missing the cut by seven strokes.
Wie is playing the Deere Classic on a sponsor's exemption, and she's clearly the center of the attention. A gallery of a couple hundred people was there at the first hole, and it grew to about 2,000 when she made the turn.
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