South Korea’s Somi Lee shot a career-best eight-under-par 64 to open up a two-shot lead within the first spherical of the LPGA’s profitable season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.
The 26-year-old made 4 birdies on the entrance 9 and three extra on the again 9 – plus an eagle on the seventeenth – with the one blemish to her scorecard arriving with a bogey on the 18th.
“It is an honour enjoying my first Tour Championship and I do not assume I used to be essentially able to be nervous about something,” Lee stated.
“I believed to myself ‘regardless of the rating is or how I play, let’s simply put together for subsequent 12 months’s season’. I believe that sort of alleviated the stress in right now’s spherical to have the ability to get a greater rating.”
American Allisen Corpuz is at six beneath, whereas world primary and defending champion Jeeno Thitikul, who leads the Race to CME Globe rankings, is considered one of 4 gamers a stroke additional again at 5 beneath.
Germany’s Esther Henseleit and Sweden’s Madelene Sagstrom ended Thursday in a tie for seventh at 4 beneath and are the highest-placed Europeans within the 60-player area at Tiburon Golf Membership in Florida, which comprises 28 of the 29 winners from this season.
England’s Charley Hull, who received this event in 2016, knocked in 5 birdies however a double-bogey on the tenth checked her progress and he or she finally signed for a three-under-par 69.
Her compatriot Lottie Woad is at two beneath, whereas world quantity two Nelly Korda recovered from consecutive bogeys on the second and third holes to complete one beneath as she chases her first win of the marketing campaign.
The LPGA’s closing occasion of the season carries a complete purse of $11m (£8.4m).
The $4m (£3.1m) high prize is the biggest winner’s cheque in ladies’s golf and the third largest in all of golf behind the boys’s Tour Championship ($10m/£7.6m) and The Gamers Championship ($4.5m/£3.4m).
