(Photo credit score: Erik Williams-Imagn Images)
World No. 2 Nelly Korda discovered one other gear over the again half of her spherical to construct a two-shot benefit after one spherical of play on the Chevron Championship, the primary main of the ladies’s golf season, Thursday in Houston.
Korda pocketed two birdies over Nos. 10-18 to start her spherical earlier than heating up from there. Korda sank three straight birdies on Nos. 1-3, then added a pair on the seventh and eighth to complete her spherical 7-under-par 65.
The soggy Memorial Park Golf Course has endured important rainfall this week. Korda obtained in some additional work within the rain earlier within the week and felt that contributed to her scorching begin.
‘Tuesday I got here out and putted within the rain once we had been allowed to earlier than the pro-am and in addition Wednesday,’ Korda mentioned. ‘It feels good to place spherical collectively.’
In 4 LPGA begins this season, Korda has gained the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and adopted that with three straight second-place finishes.
‘I really feel like I’ve a very nice group round me,’ mentioned Korda, who’s looking for her third profession main. ‘… So I feel simply there’s a consolation and happiness inside me that makes me pleased on the golf course, too.’
Tied for second at 5 below are Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit and South Korea’s Somi Lee.
Tavatanakit started her day with two birdies amongst her first three holes and by no means wavered, regardless of coming into the event with only one top-10 end to her credit score. That got here final trip, when she completed in a tie for fifth on the JM Eagle LA Championship.
She added birdies on Nos. 8, 15 and 17 in a bogey-free efficiency.
‘I really feel like that’s the definition of golf somewhat bit, is such as you’re not going all the time have it your means,’ Tavatanakit mentioned. ‘How you possibly can type of scramble round and put a spherical collectively issues greater than the way you really are striping it or how precise, you realize, your recreation is.’
Lee, a winner on the 2025 Dow Championship, carded six birdies and was in line for a good higher end earlier than she suffered a bogey on her last gap of the day, the ninth.
‘I bear in mind like my first gap … the primary birdie getting in gave me — boosted me a whole lot of the arrogance and that helped me rather a lot,’ Lee mentioned.
Amateur Farah O’Keefe is a part of a gaggle of 4 extra golfers three photographs again at 4 below. Like Lee, she suffered a bogey on the troublesome ninth to counterbalance her five-birdie day. She is tied with France’s Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, Japan’s Yuri Yoshida and China’s Yan Liu.
A whopping 10 gamers are tied for eighth at 3-under 69: Ryann O’Toole, Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen, France’s Nastasia Nadaud, Japan’s Sora Kamiya, England’s Mimi Rhodes, Linnea Strom and Maja Stark of Sweden and South Korea’s Yunseo Yang, Ina Yoon and Jin Hee Im. Yang can also be an newbie and eagled her first gap of the championship.
Defending champion Mao Saigo of Japan struggled to a 1-over 73.
–Field Level Media