Park fires 66 to lead Women’s PGA
KILDEER, Ill. – South Korea’s Sung Hyun Park shot a bogey-free 6-under 66 on Thursday to take the first-round lead in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
The 2017 U.S. Women’s Open Champion birdied three of the four par-5 holes at Kemper Lakes in the third of the LPGA Tour’s five majors.
Canada’s Brooke Henderson, the 2016 KPMG winner and runner-up last year, was a stroke back with Jessica Korda, Jaye Marie Green and Brittany Altomore.
The 24-year-old Park won the weather-shortened LPGA Texas Classic in May, but followed that with three missed cuts and a tie for 61st last week in Arkansas. After a switch in putters, she be- lieves she is rounding back into form.
The long-hitting Park birdied the par-5 15th to reach 5 under and parred the tough final three holes, finishing with a short putt on 18.
“I felt like something little was missing, especially my putting,” Park said through an interpreter. “But this week, I (feel) comfortable.”
The course favors long hitters, and that’s just fine with Korda.
She has five tour victories and her sights set on becoming the second member of her family to capture a major championship. Her father, Petr Korda, won tennis’ Australian Open in 1998.
After tying for fourth at the ANA Inspiration this year, Korda missed the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open. But she’s off to a good start in this one.
“Oh, It was great,” said Korda, the winner in Thailand in February.
PGA Tour
POTOMAC, Md. - Andrew Landry set the pace on a difficult, but rain-softened course with a 7-under 63 in the opening round of the Quicken Loans National.
J.J. Spaun matched him in the afternoon, playing in the group behind Tiger Woods without hardly anyone noticing that he played bogey-free while running off five birdies in a seven-hole stretch.
Landry, who won the Texas Open in April for his first PGA Tour title, also had a new putter in the bag. All the attention was on Woods, who had hoped a malletstyle putter might help him shake out of a putting slump. It didn’t.
Woods battled back from a double bogey with five straight birdie chances from 8 feet or closer.
He made only two of them and had to settle for a par 70, leaving him seven shots out of the lead.
“I shot about the score I should have shot today,” Woods said.
Rickie Fowler is the only player in the top 10 in the world, and he also rallied for a 70.
Even when he kept it in the short grass off the tee, Woods didn’t have a reasonable birdie chance until No. 5, and he missed from 10 feet.
US Senior Open
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Jerry Kelly made his only bogey of the day on No. 18 to close out the first round of the U.S. Senior Open with a two-shot lead at 4-under 66.
Kelly had a tricky 4-footer to save par, but when it slid to the right, he joined every other player in the 155-man field with at least one bogey on the card.
With a handful of players still on the Broadmoor course, only eight had broken par.
Rocco Mediate, Miguel Angel Jimenez Kevin Sutherland and Deane Pappas finished at 68. Mediate is in the mix 10 years after his classic 19-hole playoff loss to Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open.
Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, who won a playoff in qualifying to make the field, made only five pars and finished at 15-over 85.