Kang, Song share lead in LPGA Drive On Championship

GREENSBORO, Ga. — Danielle Kang leads the Race to CME Globe and, at No. 5 in the world, is the top-ranked player in the LPGA Drive On Championship-Lake Reynolds Oconee. She showed why Thursday.

Kang shot a 7-under 65 for a share of the firstround lead with Jennifer Song.

The event is the second tournament added to the schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down women’s golf for five months. The other “Drive On” tournament was in Toledo, Ohio, in late July and marked the return. Kang won that event at Inverness and followed with a victory the next week in the LPGA Marathon Classic in Sylvania, Ohio. She has five LPGA Tour victories after winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2010 and 2011.

Kang birdied three of the four par-5 holes in the bogey-free afternoon round on the Great Waters Course.

Song closed with a birdie on the par-5 18th, her fifth in the final seven holes. The former University of Southern California player is winless on the LPGA Tour. In 2009, she swept the U.S. Women’s Amateur and Public Links.

She played alongside Juli Inkster, the 60-year-old Hall of Famer who had a 77 in her third start of the year.

Ally McDonald made it three U.S. players at the top, shooting a bogey-free 66.

Munoz in the lead, Woods with his worst score at Sherwood

The scorecards of Sebastian Munoz and Tiger Woods were unusual for different reasons Thursday in the Zozo Championship at Sherwood in Thousand Oaks, Calif. That was only good news for one of them.

Munoz twice holed out for eagle from a combined distance of 219 yards. He also had eight birdies. Throw in a wild tee shot for double bogey, three bogeys and only five pars and it added to an 8-under 64 and a one-shot lead.

For the first time in his 1,277 rounds on the PGA Tour as a pro, Woods made bogey or worse on three par 5s in a single round. That led to a 4-over 76 — by two shots his worst score in 49 rounds at Sherwood Country Club — that left him 12 shots out of the lead and in no mood to talk.

Munoz, the Colombian who played his college golf at North Texas, finished off his bizarre round by saving par from a narrow section of the front bunker with a 15-foot putt on the 18th hole.

He was one shot ahead of Tyrrell Hatton, the hottest golfer this month, and Justin Thomas, who had a hot finish. Hatton won the European Tour flagship event at Wentworth, flew to Las Vegas for the CJ Cup and tied for third. Thomas shot 29 on the back nine at Sherwood. They each had a 65.

Whether it was shocking to see Woods so far back on this course is a matter of perspective. He is a fivetime winner at Sherwood, along with five runner-up finishes, against small fields in a holiday exhibition. He was playing only his third competitive round in the last seven weeks, and his first since missing the cut in the U.S. Open a month ago.

Roughly half the 78-man field shot in the 60s on a pleasant day in the Conejo Valley. Woods wasn’t the only one who didn’t take advantage. Rory McIlroy two double bogeys sandwiched around two birdies at the end of his round of 73. Phil Mickelson, a winner last week on the 50and-older circuit, needed four birdies on his last eight holes to shoot 72.