Grace Park and Kim Song-hee shot five-under 67s in windy conditions on Thursday to share the first-round lead at the Avnet LPGA Classic, the tour’s only event in a six-week stretch.
Park eagled the par-five 13th and had five birdies and two bogeys on The Crossings course at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail’s Magnolia Grove complex. She won the last of her six LPGA Tour titles in 2004.
Park missed the pro-am on Wednesday to rest her surgically repaired back. She has failed to make the cut in her three previous LPGA Tour starts this season.
Photo: AFP
“Overall, my back’s been better than it has in the last five, six years,” Park said. “I’m feeling really strong. I’m feeling really good.”
She got off to a fast start, then closed with birdies on her final two holes — eight and nine.
“Obviously when you finish the round at five-under, everything has to go pretty well,” she said. “I started out hitting my irons really close ... Everything was just easy and smooth today. I made a couple of mistakes, but overall in these windy conditions, I stayed very consistent to the green and rolled in some putts, and birdied the last two holes to finish at five-under.”
Kim, winless on the tour, had seven birdies and two bogeys.
“I’ve been a little sick,” Kim said. “I went to Korea a couple times and got a cold. My body was weak, sick. My mind has really been worried about everything. I try too hard. My shots aren’t the same as last year. Hitting left, right, left. I’ve had better shots the last three weeks, working pretty hard.”
Stacy Lewis, the Kraft Nabisco winner three weeks ago, was a stroke back at 68 along with Karen Stupples. Lewis had a bogey-free round.
“I was a little bit surprised,” Lewis said. “I played really good and I was kind of surprised just because I hadn’t been able to practice like I wanted to the last couple weeks, but I was pleasantly surprised. I played really solid. I had a lot of putts around the hole. I just got a couple to drop.”
Defending champion Pak Se-ri shot a 69 to match Choi Na-yeon and Angela Oh.
Pak also won the Tournament of Champions on the course in 2001 and 2002.
“It is important to be patient out there today,” Pak said. “Pretty difficult this morning, because really windy out there and [the] greens are pretty hard to get the right distance.”
Michelle Wie opened with a 76. She bogeyed five of the first eight holes.
World No. 1 Yani Tseng also struggled, shooting a 77. She had a triple-bogey on the par-four first — her 10th hole of the day — and a double-bogey on the par-five 16th.
Taiwan’s Candie Kung shot an even-par 72 to lie tied for 22nd place, while compatriot Amy Hung carded a three-over 75.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Fenerbahce on Thursday earned a rare 2-1 win in England, but were still knocked out of the UEFA Europa League by Nottingham Forest in the playoffs. Forest entered the second leg with a healthy 3-0 lead from the opener in Istanbul — where Vitor Pereira made an impact in his first game in charge — and that proved enough to advance to the round-of-16 with a 4-2 aggregate score. The result was a boost for Forest, struggling at 17th place in the Premier League, in their return to Europe after three decades. They next face Real Betis Balompie or Kerem Akturkoglu gave Fenerbahce
Soccer officials yesterday offered “full support and assistance” to the Iranian team in Australia for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup after the US and Israel launched massive attacks on their homeland. Iran’s 26-strong squad arrived on the Gold Coast days before the strikes on Saturday killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Washington and Tel Aviv seek to topple the Islamic republic. They are due to open their tournament today against South Korea. The AFC in a statement said it “continues to closely monitor the recent developments in the Middle East during this challenging period.” “The AFC’s foremost priority remains the welfare, safety and
ROAD RASH: Marc Marquez retired after a crash, marking the first time after 88 consecutive races stretching back to 2021 that a Ducati bike failed to make the podium Marco Bezzecchi yesterday won the MotoGP season-opening grand prix in Thailand from pole position as defending world champion Marc Marquez retired late with a buckled wheel. Aprilia’s Bezzecchi led from start to finish to top the podium in Buriram, with KTM’s Pedro Acosta second and Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez third. Ducati’s Marquez is chasing a record-equaling eighth world title this season, but he exited the race in dramatic fashion while in fourth place with five laps to go. The Spaniard, who started from second on the grid, took a corner wide, with the jolt to his bike dislodging the rear tire, badly damaging his
EVERY DAY A VICTORY: Players on the women’s team faced pressure from society just getting out onto the field as they prepare for their first Women’s Asian Cup game today Bangladesh’s national soccer team face daunting odds at their first-ever Women’s Asian Cup, but have already scored a major victory by qualifying. In the South Asian nation of 170 million, social stigma, family expectations, poverty and religious hardliners have long relegated women and girls to sports sidelines. The first women’s soccer league matches took place in 2011 and the squad, known to fans as the Red and Green, have kept pressing forward despite deeply embedded prejudices. “Many more girls would have joined us if the community had been even slightly supportive,” captain Afeida Khandaker told AFP ahead of her side’s March 3
RSS