YUKA JUST ONE SHOT OFF OPEN PACE SET BY KORDA, TWO OTHERS
CARNOUSTIE—Yuka Saso didn’t have the first round distractions she had in the Olympics and can continue chasing world No. 1 Nelly Korda as the American sustained sizzling form to take a one-stroke lead along with two others at the start on Thursday of the Women’s British Open.
Korda, who won the gold medal in Tokyo where Saso finished in a ninth place tie after opening sluggishly, fired a five-under-par 67 like South Korea’s Sei Young-kim and Madelene Sagstrom of Sweden to set the pace, with Saso just a shot behind together with three others in the last major of the season.
Saso highlighted her round with an eagle on No. 12 for a 33-35 card at Carnoustie, one of the toughest Scottish links layouts, as she got the start she wanted unlike in the Olympics where a Japanese reporter asked her a malicious question on the eve of the opening round where she fired a three-over-par 74.
The 20-year-old Saso, the reigning US Women’s Open champion, put herself in the mix right away again and will be pursuing a lot of the best players in the world led by Korda, who drained eight birdies in her opening round.
“I’m doing good, very good but it will be very difficult. Playing on a links course is different,” said Saso.
Korda ducked a pretournament press conference—but insisted there was nothing sinister about the decision as she instead spent more time on the driving range.
“I still feel like a little girl playing golf,” explained Korda, the daughter of 1998 Australian Open tennis champion Petr Korda.
“It has been a long couple of weeks and I have to carefully manage my time. Yesterday (Wednesday) I had to play in a Pro-am and I wasn’t hitting it all that well and wanted to get to the range. I was really, really tired,” she said.
Louise Duncan, this year’s British Women’s Amateur champ, also shot 68 to be in the company of Saso, American Andrea Lee and England’s Georgia Hall.