American Jane Park, in search of her first LPGA title in her sixth season on the tour, fired a six-under-par 66 on Thursday to seize the first round lead in the Kia Classic.
Park played without a bogey, but she had some big names within striking distance.
Hall of Famer Karrie Webb of Australia had six birdies and one bogey in her five-under 67, which had her tied for second alongside Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall.
Italian Giulia Sergas and American Jessica Korda were tied for fourth on 68, while the 10 players tied on three-under 69 included South Korean Hall of Famer Pak Se-ri and US star Paula Creamer. Park started on the back nine and birdied 13 and 17. After another birdie at the second, she birdied three in a row from the fourth.
“The golf courses here just really fit my eye,” Park said. “I just love this style of golf course, so maybe that’s why I played pretty well today.”
Webb powered her way into contention with four birdies in a five-hole stretch. She birdied the fourth and, after failing to take advantage of the par-five fifth, she birdied three in a row from the sixth. Birdies at 12 and 14 sandwiched her lone bogey of the day at 13.
“Tee to green was pretty solid,” she said. “I only missed a couple fairways, a couple greens and made some putts, which is good in the afternoon on these poa annua greens, so it was a pretty solid round. I didn’t really get myself in too much trouble, just one hole I missed a fairway and was in the deep rough, but other than that it was all right.”
Hedwall grabbed her share of second place despite a double-bogey on the par-five 10th — where she put two balls in the water. She countered that and one bogey with eight birdies, six of them on the front nine.
The tournament is without defending champion Yani Tseng of Taiwan, who was toppled from the No. 1 spot in the world rankings this week by the US’ Stacy Lewis.
Tseng overslept on Wednesday and missed the tee time for her pro-am round. Under LPGA rules, failing to appear for the pro-am bars a player from competing in the tournament.
An embarrassed Tseng issued a statement on Wednesday saying she overslept.
“I was extremely excited to compete this week to defend my title at the Kia Classic and to try to regain the No. 1 spot,” she said. “This was an unfortunate mistake and I want to apologize to Kia, my sponsors and all of the fans.”
Taiwan’s Amy Hung was tied for 43rd place with an even-par 72.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier