Lorena Ochoa in action in Singapore (by courtesy of Getty Images/HSBC Women's Champions).

Four share lead on four-under 68 in heat of Singapore

By Lewine Mair, http://www.hsbcgolf.com/
Lorena Ochoa, Angela Stanford, Cristie Kerr and Hee Young Park all returned 68s to top a thrillingly-cluttered leaderboard at the end of the first day of the Women’s HSBC Champions in Singapore.
Each of the leaders felt differently about her four-under-par tally. Ochoa, who won here in 2008, was happy with the score but irritated with a series of miscued shots to the greens. Stanford was concerned about her shape of shot - left to right. “Usually for me that spells danger,” she said, before heading for the range.
Kerr, meantime, was conscious of the need to stick with “the boring golf” which made for her inward 31. “Boring golf is good golf,” she advised. “When I try to be too perfect, as I did at the start, it doesn’t work.”
Only Park had one of those days which left her with absolutely nothing to worry about. On Wednesday she amassed as many as nine birdies in the pro-am round, with her party winning the event by a little matter of 12 shots. Her gleeful partners advised, “Keep up the good work tomorrow” and she duly did, making only two birdies fewer. “I was so confident when I went to the first tee,” she said.
Having found Singapore too hot and the course too difficult last year, Park trained over the winter with this event in mind, spending long hours in the gym and on her course management. She was in the enviable position of never noticing the heat today, while she was always putting herself in “position A” on what everyone sees as a difficult course.
Though Park does not have an LPGA title under her belt, she has shown steady signs of improvement. Where, in 2008, her rookie season, she had four top ten finishes, she last year upped that tally to six.
Though heat was definitely a factor for most of the day, the later starters were troubled rather more by a playful wind which turned parasols inside-out and sent hats flying.
Michelle Wie, who attracted a large and admiring gallery for what was her first round on Singapore soil, missed each of the last two greens in these feisty conditions to finish bogey, bogey for a level-par 72. The Stanford student was frustrated but acknowledged that she had hit enough good shots over the day to escape with her confidence intact.
Christina Kim led the way at 8.40 this morning and started the tournament in style…Kim style. There was an emerald green back-to-front beret, a multi-coloured shirt and orange shorts. “It’s not what you wear but how you wear it,” she advised, cheerfully.
Unlike Ian Poulter, another clothes-conscious soul, Kim does not decide in advance she will wear on the different tournament days. In her case, everything depends on how she feels when she wakes up. Today, she was “thinking green”, though she went on to explain that there is always something green in the mix by way of marking her devotion to saving the planet.
As late as Wednesday evening, this larger-than-life figure was experimenting with a variety of shots – shots of gin, Cherry Heering, Benedictine and fresh pineapple - as she served Singapore Slings at the pro-am dinner at Raffles Hotel.
There was much the same extravagant mix on the course – high shots and low to fit every occasion. Though the Solheim Cup golfer’s putting cost her a couple of bogies early on, she hit back with three stunning birdies from the 12th and four in five holes on her way to an inward 33.
“I’m swinging so damn good right now that it’s scary,” she announced.