The USGA is hosting its 83rd championship in Pennsylvania. Regardless, she is ready to put the good feelings from previous year a Pinehurst away and try to defend her crown. That was Alex’s first top-25 finish since last season’s finale at the CME Group Tour Championship. She would have bogeyed all three if not for a hard up-and-down from the rough right of Lancaster Country Club’s ninth green, her 18th hole of the day.
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Spieth, who will go for his third straight major title next week at St. Andrews, had three bogeys in a four-hole stretch and missed a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 18. Morgan Pressel and six other morning starters shot a two-beneath 68.
“That’s never been a goal of mine”, she said. Last year’s runner-up Stacy Lewis opened with a 1-under 69.
After the dust settled, Wie entered the clubhouse at a tie for 62nd place overall at two over par.
The 40-year-old Queenslander, who won back-to-back Opens in 2000 and 2001, said past experience had taught her to keep her emotions in check as she looked to get off to a smooth start in the tournament.
The Australian got on the board with a short birdie putt at the par-4 second. She came into the week battling a hip injury and has been working with swing coach David Leadbetter to narrow her stance and relieve the joint of pressure. After a par on five, Webb birdied the remaining par-3s, Nos.
Webb and Alex hit an impressive 27 of 28 fairways and 34 of 36 greens combined and share a lead at 4-under-par 66 after the bulk of one round was completed.
“A very solid round”. That Flynn’s achievement is getting wide attention this week is wonderful for the club and the players who are having the pleasure of competing on it. “My proximity to the hole was probably between 15 to 25, 30 feet, and a lot of them broke two or three feet. So it got me into red numbers, and I played a really great (my) back nine to finish”.
Both Webb and Alex started on the back side and closed on the front.
BOURNEMOUTH’S Georgia Hall suffered a thunderstorm delay as she struggled in the first round of the US Women’s Open – her first Major as a professional. Then, she shifted her focus quickly to the second round, which she started an hour after finishing the first. She had surgery to remove her thyroid and cancerous lymph node in her neck. She rebounded with a tie for sixth in Arkansas, an event that saw her close with a 63.
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“I just feel more comfortable and I’m making freer swings and the results are showing from that”, said Alex, a ex- two-time New Jersey girls high school champion for Wayne Hills. “I’m here. I didn’t prepare differently, just because it was a major”. “I did not think I would be 4 under through eight holes, so if you told me that, I wouldn’t have believed you”. Playing on the Canadian Women’s Tour this year, she finished tied for 22nd at the Alberta event and at the Glencoe Golf and Country Club in May and 18th at the Ontario stop at the Smiths Falls Golf and Country Club in June.
