Bret Lasky on LPGA – July 06, 2018: Golf can be hard to explain.
Less than a week ago, Katherine Kirk fired an 83 in the second round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. It was the worst round of her professional career. On Thursday at Thornberry Creek, she dazzled with a personal best and a course-record-tying 10-under, 62 to lead after day one.
“Golf is funny,” said Kirk just minutes after arriving in the media center fresh off the great round. “When you’ve played it as long as I have professionally you realize some days will be good and some will be bad.”
Aditi Ashok fired three under 69 in the opening round. She shot a birdie and an eagle at the ninth make the turn in 33 strokes. The back nine though proved harder to crack as she stayed even with a birdie at 15 being undone by a bogey at 17.
Kirk was phenomenal from the moment she hit her first tee shot of the day on hole ten. She made birdie on 10, 11 and 12 and then racked up four more birdies towards the end of the front nine to go out in 29. Kirk then closed with three more birdies on her inward nine.
“I know you can go low out there so stepping on the first tee today I just said, ‘let’s play aggressively and go make as many birdies as possible’,” explained Kirk. “Thankful it worked out.”
Kirk’s statistics were obviously off the charts. She hit 14 of 14 fairways, attempted just 25 putts and hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation.
Sei Young Kim is in second place after a 9-under, 63 that included six birdies in a row on her back nine. Brittany Marchand and Megan Khang are tied for third at 8-under.
The conditions were scoring friendly on Thursday. There were 614 birdies made and the total scoring average was 69.58.
Emma Talley made an incredible nine birdies over a ten hole stretch between the second hole and the 11th. She was 8-under after 11 and firmly on 59 watch. The craziest part of it all was that she actually made bogey on hole one.
During the stretch of nine birdies in ten holes, she made six straight from holes six through 11, which matches her longest such streak achieved in the eighth grade. Talley cooled off quite a bit making six straight pars before a finishing bogey on 18. She totaled a 7-under, 65, the lowest round of her career on the LPGA.
“It was amazing, it was really fun,” said Talley. “I was 8-under through 12 holes with a bogey on the 1st, so it was a great start. Thank goodness I had a good start. The last few holes were a little rough. But I’m looking forward to the rest of the week.”
Talley said she briefly began to think about 59 after reeling off six straight birdies in the middle of her round.
“I was already counting in my head at one point, what do I have to do to shoot 59?,” said Talley. “It kind of went downhill from there. I had never even played 13, 14, or 15 yet because it got rained out yesterday.”
Maybe the strong play can be attributed to the visor you see above. It was the first time she sported that look in her career.
