Haeran Ryu carded a bogey-free, 9-under-par 63 on Thursday to take the first-round lead at the inaugural Black Desert Championship in Ivins, Utah.
The 24-year-old South Korean holds a one-shot lead over Taiwan’s Wei-Ling Hsu and Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn at the Club at Carlton Woods’ Nicklaus Course.
Lucy Li, Germany’s Esther Henseleit, Spain’s Carlota Ciganda, Australia’s Grace Kim and South Koreans Jiwon Jeon and Soo Bin Joo are tied for fourth place at 7 under. Six players share 10th place at 6 under.
Japan’s Mao Saigo, who won her first career major title last week at the Chevron Championship, is tied for 42nd at 2 under.
Ryu opened on the back nine and birdied each of her first two holes. She wound up with five birdies on the back nine and four on the front nine.
“This course, it is … not too … narrow but feels like it is because (there are) too many rocks in here,” said Ryu, who earned her second career LPGA win last September outside Boston. “So I just want to keep keeping on the fairway my tee shot and on the easy spot on the greens.”
She also cited a recent change of putters as helping her.
“It’s more comfortable for my shot and, yeah, that’s good for last week and this week, too,” Ryu said.
Hsu started and ended her round well. Beginning on the back nine, she had an early stretch of birdie-par-eagle-birdie. The eagle came at the par-5 13th hole, where she sank a short putt. She closed her bogey-free day with three consecutive birdies.
Matching Ryu’s stats, Hsu hit 13 of 14 fairways and 17 of 18 greens in regulation.
“This week I think I just try to be a little bit more calm and a little bit more relaxed,” Hsu said. “So I think I had a good mindset start of today, and a lot of approaching shot I just — before I hit the shot just like, ‘You can do this, Wei-Ling.’
“I think I just give myself a good note in my head, so I think that really worked out well today.”
Jutanugarn’s two nines were nearly identical, each featuring five pars and two sets of back-to-back birdies.
“I would say this course can be really stressful because you kind of have to plan everything, every shot, like tee shot, second shot, where to finish the ball,” Jutanugarn said. “… I’m very lucky this morning. No wind, so got a bit easier to stop … the ball where I want to finish.”
–Field Level Media
