PARK LEADS BY THREE AT EVIAN CHAMPIONSHIP

Sung Hyun Park

The US Women’s Open champion, Sung Hyun Park, took advantage of a fresh start at the Evian Championship on Friday morning as she fired an opening round of eight-under-par 63 to take a three-stroke clubhouse lead over Katherine Kirk.

Play was cancelled on Thursday due to adverse weather and all scores were erased, reducing the tournament to a 54-hole event with a re-start on Friday morning.

Park, the world number three who also won the Canadian Open last month, had been last on the leader board, on six-over-par after eight holes, when first round play was suspended, having taken a triple and a quintuple bogey.

It was a different story on Friday as she made seven birdies, an eagle and one bogey on a soft golf course, effectively gaining 14 strokes from where she had left off on Thursday morning.
Her Irish caddie, David Jones, who worked for fellow Korean In Gee Chun when she won the Evian Championship 12 months ago, quipped: “I’m going to buy a lottery ticket tonight!”
Meanwhile, when asked if she was happy that yesterday’s scores were wiped out, the poker-faced Park said, through a translator: “To be honest, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised, but what I did was I just wanted to focus on my game today and go on.”

Park certainly appeared to have regained her focus. She started with birdies on the 10th and 12th before chipping in for eagle on the par 5 13th and added two further birdies on the 15th and 17th in a back nine of 30.
On her front nine, she birdied the second, bogeyed the fourth and made further gains at the seventh and ninth holes, coming in with 33.

Georgia Hall

She was three ahead of the recent Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic champion, Australian Katherine Kirk, who shot a five-under-par 66, as play continued under blue skies into the afternoon, with Moriya Jutanugarn also on five-under after 14 holes.
Jessica Korda and In-Kyung Kim, the Ricoh Women’s British Open champion, were in the clubhouse on four-under-par, with England’s Georgia Hall in a group on three-under alongside the US Amateur champion Sophia Schubert, 21, from Tennessee, Ai Miyazato, Ayako Uehara and the 2015 champion, Lydia Ko.

Hall started with two birdies on the back nine at the fourth and sixth holes, against a bogey on 14 and added three more at the fourth, fifth and seventh, before making a second bogey at the par-3 eighth.
“My chipping was really good today, which I’m very happy about. I holed some really good putts, but I also missed a couple of short ones. But I managed to kind of keep in there,” said Hall, who is making her first appearance in the Evian Championship. Commenting on the golf course, she said: “It’s playing quite long, but the fairways are very soft and the greens, as well, so you can attack a few more pins. I thought the pins were actually quite tough for the first day. They were tucked into some very difficult positions. “I normally play well on tight golf courses. That’s what I’ve always said since I was about 13, and this is definitely quite tight. There are some really tricky holes out there, so I just wanted to see how today went, but I managed to shoot a good score.”

Earlier in the day, Paula Creamer, who was playing with Ai Miyazato and Yani Tseng, withdrew due to a wrist injury.

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