Korda opens with 64 at Evian Championship
EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France – Nelly Korda is just trying to enjoy herself at the Evian Championship after a fourmonth injury layoff that has given her more perspective about her golf.
Not that she felt so great taking a shot while standing barefoot in a slimy lake.
“I’ve never done anything like that and I must say, it was really gross,” Korda said about her adventure at No. 18 midway through an 7-under 64 that left her a stroke behind first-round leader Ayaka Furue on Thursday in the fourth major of 2022.
Korda’s approach shot at the par-5 18th hole – her ninth of the day after starting at No. 10 – ended up rolling down a bank on the front right of the green and into the water. Her caddie ran up to the green and saw it was possible to make contact with the ball, so Korda removed her golf shoes, waded into the lake, and splashed out to the edge of the green.
Korda went on to make par.
The American missed a 12-foot birdie putt at her last hole but still shot her lowest round of the year, continuing her impressive comeback after time out following surgery on a blood clot in her arm.
This is her fifth event since returning to competitive action on June 16 and she has three top-10s in that time. She was No. 1 in the world when she stopped playing and now is No. 3.
Korda was tied for second place with No. 10-ranked Brooke Henderson of Canada, who posted 64 by holing a double-breaker for eagle at No. 9, also her last hole.
American golfer Cheyenne Knight was in the clubhouse in fourth place at 6 under, a stroke ahead of top-ranked Jin Young Ko and another two-time major champion, Lydia Ko.
In Gee Chun, who won the Women’s PGA Championship last month, was in a tie for 10th place at 4 under.
PGA Tour
BLAINE, Minn. – Scott Piercy shot a 6-under 65 to share the 3M Open lead with Sungjae Im after the first round Thursday.
Tony Finau was two strokes back, with three near misses of birdie putts over his last four holes, along with Brice Garnett, Doug Ghim, Emiliano Grillo and Tom Hoge.
On a dry, windy, 86-degree day at the TPC Twin Cities in suburban Minneapolis, the course’s penchant for producing low scores held up once again.
Playing in the second group of the day off the first tee, Piercy made 151 feet worth of putts. He birdied four of the first five holes on his back nine.
The 43-year-old Piercy, who led the 3M Open in 2019 by two strokes after the first round, is one of several on-thefringe players in the field this year seeking a late-season lift in the Fedex Cup race. Piercy arrived in Minnesota in 138th place, with the cut for the playoffs at 125 and two events left after this to qualify. In four of his last six starts, Piercy has failed to advance to the weekend.
On tour since 2009, Piercy has four career wins. Just last week, he switched his caddie, his swing coach, his driver and his putter – an uncharacteristically drastic series of decisions for him.
Im, who’s 19th in the Fedex Cup standings and 24th in the world, birdied four of his last six holes. The 24-yearold from South Korea tied for eighth at the Masters this year but tied for 81st last week at the British Open.
Finau, the lone member of last year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team and the 17thranked player in the world, has two topfive finishes this summer.
The Utah player missed a 3-foot birdie putt on 15 and left a 4-footer for birdie just short on 16. Then on the 18th, his tee and approach shots were spot on, but an 8-foot birdie putt lipped out and settled 4 inches from the cup. Making two of those three would’ve put him in the lead.
The highest-ranked player in the field, Hideki Matsuyama, withdrew. He cited a sore wrist after shooting a 77 to match his worst round of the season, his Saturday at the Masters on April 9.
Entering the week in eighth place in the Fedex Cup race and the world’s No. 14 player, Matsuyama hit into the water three times on the unforgiving and lakeside 18th hole and took a quadruple-bogey 9. Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters winner and a fourth-place finisher at the U.S. Open this summer, tied for seventh at the first edition of the 3M Open
in 2019.
Mardy Fish, the former tennis star who’s playing on a sponsor exemption, was tied for last at 81.
European Tour
SOUTHPORT, England – Paul Waring tied the course record by shooting 9-under 63 to take a two-stroke lead in the first round of the Cazoo Classic on the European tour on Thursday.
The 37-year-old Englishman holed out from a greenside bunker for eagle at the par-5 17th and then birdied the last at Hillside in Southport, northern England, to shoot his best round of a year that has seen him miss the cut in five of 11 events on tour. Waring is attached to Bromborough Golf Club just 30 miles (48 kilometers) away.
“I started nicely, controlled my ball pretty well all day,” Waring said.
Garrick Porteous, another Englishman, shot 65 to be alone in second place and there was a four-way tie for third between France’s Julien Guerrier, Scotland’s Grant Forrest, Sweden’s Jens Dantorp and England’s Richard Mansell.
Mansell dropped into that group by
bogeying the last.
Senior British Open
GLENEAGLES, Scotland – Playing with a new set of golf clubs after his own ones failed to arrive from the United States, Glen Day never expected to be a contender at the Senior British Open this week.
Imagine his surprise, then, at taking a share of the lead after the first round at Gleneagles on Thursday.
Day converted an 8-foot eagle putt at the par-5 18th at The King’s Course to match Stephen Ames’ bogey-free 6-under 64.
Padraig Harrington wasn’t too impressed with his own performance, either, in his first appearance in a Senior Open.
Still, the two-time Open champion and reigning U.S. Senior Open champion made five birdies on the back nine in his round of 66.
Paul Broadhurst, the 2016 champion at Carnoustie, was one stroke back along with Jerry Kelly, Kent Jones and Darren Clarke.
Ernie Els, a two-time British Open winner, shot a 66.