Women's British Open - 1st Round

Yani Tseng and Katherine Hull are tied for the lead after posting 68s in the first round of the RICOH Women's British Open.  Brittany Lincicome, Sun Young Yoo, Amy Yang and LET regular Anne-Lise Caudal are tied for third while In-Kyung Kim and Michelle Wie are tied for seventh after rounds of 70.

The day began under tough conditions - light rain and a 10-15mph wind.  Very few members of the early groups finished under par.  As it was, only 15 players broke par all day.  Brittany Lang was the first to reach -2 when she birdied 12 but she double-bogeyed 16 and finished with a 71.  As conditions began to improve, Yang ran off three straight birdies (4 through 6) to take the lead and was soon joined by Caudal and Gwladys Nocera.  Gwladys bogeyed 9 and 12 but recovered to also post 71.  Kim birdied 17 to tie for the lead and had only four feet at 18 to be the first to -3 but she missed.  Caudal tapped in for birdie at 18 to take the lead for herself by posting 69.  Yang birdied 18 to do the same.  Lincicome was +3 thru 2, birdied 6 through 8 and then birdied 14 and 15 to go -2.  After taking no bogeys and only one birdie all day, Tseng birdied 17 and eagled 18 to leap over everybody to -4.  Yoo birdied the last two and Lincicome birdied the last to create a four-way tie for second.  Near the very end of the day, Hull went to 18 at -2 and eagled it to catch Tseng for the overnight lead.

The other notable scores include:

71  Jiyai Shin, Stacy Lewis, Juli Inkster, Stacy Prammanasudh, Stacy Bregman 72  Anna Nordqvist, Inbee Park, Jee Young Lee, Hee Young Park, Carin Koch 72  Laura Davies, Mi Hyun Kim, Momoko Ueda, Hee-Won Han, Janice Moodie 73  Cristie Kerr, Suzann Pettersen, Karrie Webb, Maria Hjorth, Sophie Gustafson 74  Na Yeon Choi, Paula Creamer, Jeong Jang, Christina Kim, Sakura Yokomine 75  Song-Hee Kim, Catriona Matthew, Seon Hwa Lee, M.J. Hur, Candie Kung 76  Ai Miyazato, Angela Stanford, Sherri Steinhauer, Louise Friberg, Sandra Gal 77  Morgan Pressel, Vicky Hurst, Mika Miyazato, Karen Stupples, Jane Park 79  Kristy McPherson, Ji Young Oh, Soo-Yun Kang, Diana Luna

Wie duplicated Tseng's birdie-eagle finish to jump into the Top 10.  Natalie Gulbis and Sun Ju Ahn withdrew before their tee times - no info yet on either.  The one name amongst the leaders you probably are unfamiliar with is Caudal.  A 26-year-old from France, Anne-Lise has one LET victory - the 2008 Portugal Ladies Open.  She collected three Top 10s on that tour last year and two so far this year.  Caudal came in playing well with a third-place finish in the most recent LET event, the Tenerife Ladies Open.

As you might can tell, I got to see a little of the coverage on ESPN this morning.  They're still playing that damned music with the bagpipes in it, even though Southport is NOT in Scotland.  Another strange one - the first hour of coverage was tape-delayed while the last two were live.  Don't recall seeing anybody do that before.  We got to see more players that way so I'm not complaining.