Inbee Park could finally crack a smile, even if she was five shots behind leader Brooke Henderson.
No more nerves or anxiety whether Park’s injured thumb would hold up; the South Korean star was never more excited to make bogey than on the 18th to finish off the first round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship on Thursday — the round that made her eligible for the LPGA Hall of Fame.
“I was quite nervous this morning. I don’t think I was this nervous when I was going for a major championship,” Park said. “This is a very, very special feeling, and I’m really going to enjoy Hall of Fame.”
Park’s score of one-over 72 did not really matter. It left the three-time defending champion of the event well back of Henderson, who shot a four-under 67 in her morning round.
Park, 27, is the youngest player to qualify for the Hall of Fame. She completed the final eligibility requirement by playing the first round of her 10th event of her 10th season. She has won seven major titles and has 17 LPGA Tour victories.
Park has been dealing with inflammation in the tendon and ligaments of her left thumb, but overcame the discomfort to be on the leaderboard for most of the first round before making the bogey on the final hole.
As she walked off the putting surface, Park celebrated with family, Hall of Famers, fellow competitors and tour officials.
Hall of Famers Annika Sorenstam, Pak Se-ri, Juli Inkster and Karrie Webb were among the crowd greeting Park and welcoming her to an exclusive club in women’s golf. Park is only the 24th player in the LPGA Hall of Fame and the first since Pak in 2007.
“It definitely came quicker than I thought, and it obviously wasn’t easy to get there,” Park said. “There were some very hard moments, and very successful moments altogether and made me who I am right now.”
The last time Park played a competitive round she shot 84 at the Volvik Championship in Michigan on May 27 and withdrew after the first round, the second consecutive tournament she pulled out of early.
Park was tied for second at two-under after rolling in a 20-foot birdie putt on the ninth. She scrambled for pars to start the back nine, making a 15-footer on the 11th after hitting her drive into the rough.
Park bogeyed the 12th and 14th holes to fall back to even par. She missed a short birdie putt at No. 17 and pulled her second shot from the fairway on the 18th and missed a 20-footer for par.
“The score is obviously not the greatest, but I’m satisfied with the score today,” Park said.
Henderson did her part in trying to steal the attention from Park. The 18-year-old Canadian, ranked fourth in the world, sparked her round by making an ace on the 13th hole — her fourth hole of the day — hitting a seven-iron from 155 yards to the left side of the green. The shot caught the apron and funneled directly to the cup.
“It really helped out a lot and gave me momentum for the rest of the day,” said Henderson, who won a car that she gave to sister and caddie Brittany.
Henderson was at three-under after making a birdie at the difficult par-four 18th — her ninth hole of the day — and overcame struggles with her driver on her second nine that caused her to drop two shots. Henderson birdied three of her final four holes.
“Making the turn I was a little shaky,” Henderson said. “Hit a couple of bad drives, but I was able to scramble, get up and down a couple of times that really saved my round and then finished really strong.”
Henderson won in Portland, Oregon, last year and has nine top-10 finishes this season.
Christina Kim and I.K. Kim followed at 69. Christina Kim was at two-over after three holes before rallying on her second nine.
“This place has absolutely drained me. I’m very, very thankful I was able to play early today,” said Christina Kim, fourth last week in New Jersey after finishing second the previous week in Michigan.
Top-ranked Lydia Ko had an even-par 71 in a round that featured 14 pars, two birdies and two bogeys. Both of Ko’s bogeys came after she missed the fairway and had to pitch out from the trees.
Ariya Jutanugarn, the winner of her last three starts, was tied for fourth at 70. She played alongside Park.
Stacy Lewis shot a 73. Down to seventh in the world, the 31-year-old US golfer is winless in 50 starts since June 2014. She has 10 runner-up finishes during the drought and 23 overall.
Third-ranked Lexi Thompson bogeyed four of her first five holes in a 75.
Kaohsiung-born Candie Kung of the US carded a two-over 73 to finish tied for 37th, while Taiwan’s Hsu Wei-ling finished tied for 63rd after a four-over 75, Min Lee tied for 83rd on five-over 76 and Yani Tseng’s first-round six-over 77 left her in a tie for 101st. Cheng Ssu-chia carded a 10-over 81 to finish in a tie for 140th.
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