Two-time main champion Minjee Lee of Australia managed a robust wind and caught a break with uncommon sunshine in a moist Scottish summer time 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 gold 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 have been at 68.
The opening spherical was suspended by unhealthy climate and a water-logged course. Lily Might Humphreys of England was at 4 below with six holes to play. Play was halted initially for about an hour due to rain, and there was one other climate delay of two hours and 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.
“At all times a cheerful woman after a bogey-free spherical,” Lee stated. “I really feel like I performed good golf, I’d say. I gave myself plenty of alternatives for birdie. I really feel like once I was in hassle, I sort of missed it in the precise spots and will get up-and-down, in order that was good.”
Lee figures she caught a break not having to take care of the brunt of the rain, though there was no escaping the fierce wind.
Ko received 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 wonderful. Nevertheless it was windy and rain,” Ko stated. “It’s onerous when you need to maintain the umbrella sideways and never up. I’m fairly positive 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 route, each par 5s on the entrance have been reachable. Nonetheless, she had no complaints given the climate.
“That’s simply a part of the expertise of coming over. For those who don’t prefer it, you’re in all probability 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 aspect of the draw. However that’s additionally a part of taking part in 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 event is the ultimate cease earlier than the Ladies’s British Open subsequent week at St. Andrews.