IRVINE, Scotland — Two-time main champion Minjee Lee of Australia managed a robust wind and caught a break with uncommon sunshine in a moist Scottish summer season with a 5-under 67 on Thursday for a one-shot lead within the ISPS Handa Ladies’s Scottish Open earlier than play was stopped for the day.
Lydia Ko, coming off her Olympic golf medal that put her into the LPGA Corridor of Fame, confronted the worst of the climate at Dundonald Hyperlinks and made 5 birdies in her spherical of 69.
Former U.S. Ladies’s Open champion A Lim Kim and American Megan Khang had been at 68.
The opening spherical was suspended by dangerous climate and a water-logged course. Lily Might Humphreys of England was at 4 underneath with six holes to play. Play was halted in the beginning for about an hour due to rain, and there was one other climate delay of two hours, 20 minutes.
Lee is coming off a disappointing Olympics exterior Paris when she was by no means within the hunt and wound up ending in a tie for twenty second. She performed bogey-free on a troublesome course, selecting up birdies on each par 5s on the again 9.
“All the time a contented lady after a bogey-free spherical,” Lee stated. “I really feel like I performed sensible golf, I’d say. I gave myself a number of alternatives for birdie. I really feel like after I was in hassle, I type of missed it in the suitable spots and will get up-and-down, in order that was good.”
Lee figures she caught a break not having to cope with the brunt of the rain, though there was no escaping the fierce wind.
Ko obtained the worst of each, describing the climate as so chaotic that she was too busy coping with it to get overly careworn.
“If it’s simply windy, it’s high quality. However it was windy and rain,” Ko stated. “It’s onerous when you need to maintain the umbrella sideways and never up. I’m fairly certain it was constructed so that you can maintain it like vertically. So it’s simply very tough on the market.”
Ko managed a 69 regardless of making just one birdie on the par 5s. With the wind path, each par 5s on the entrance had been reachable. Nonetheless, she had no complaints given the climate.
“That’s simply a part of the expertise of coming over. When you don’t prefer it, you’re most likely not going to play that good, anyway,” Ko stated. “So it’s simply extra about grinding it out and know that typically you’re not going to be on the fairer facet of the draw. However that’s additionally a part of enjoying tournaments over on this a part of the world.”
Charley Hull of England was contending for the lead till a bogey on the par-5 14th slowed her momentum. She wound up within the group at 70 that included Esther Henseleit of Germany, who captured the silver medal on the Paris Video games.
The match is the ultimate cease earlier than the Ladies’s British Open subsequent week at St. Andrews.
