Charley Hull fired a superb five-under 67 to claim the solo lead at the AIG Women’s Open after the first round.
In challenging, windy conditions at St Andrews’ Old Course, Hull made it look easy with six birdies and just one bogey to take the early advantage in the final Major of the year.
Hull has a one-stroke lead over Ruoning Yin and world No. 1 Nelly Korda, while six players – including defending champion Lilia Vu – are a shot further back at three-under.
The 28-year-old Briton, who finished runner-up at last year’s Open, started her round with four-straight pars before sinking her first birdie of the day on the par-5 fifth.
After dropping a shot on the eighth, she bounced back with back-to-back birdies on holes nine and ten, before adding three more to finish strong – including a three on the iconic 18th thanks to a brilliant approach to within six feet.
Speaking to Sky Sports after her round, Hull said finishing with a birdie was the “perfect” way to end what was an extremely difficult day.
“It was unbelievable,” she said. “To be fair, when I woke up this morning I saw how windy it was on the range and I thought to myself, ‘how is she [Yin] four-under par’? And I saw Georgia [Hall] shot one-under and I thought, ‘fair play, that’s a really good score’. And then for me to shoot that, it was good because it was so gusty out there.”
Hull ranked the difficulty of the round as “10 out of 10”, but managed to use her local knowledge to put on a links golf clinic.
“I don’t know how the balls weren’t moving on the greens … it was so windy.”
However, Hull will have a stacked leaderboard chasing her on day two, with Yin and Korda hot on her tail.
Korda, who played alongside Hull and Vu, rediscovered some of the shot-making that saw her win six times in seven starts earlier in the year, and finished her round with two straight birdies to sit a shot behind the lead.
“It’s nice to finish birdie-birdie after such a tough day,” Korda said after her round. “It was so fun to play alongside Charley and Lilia. I couldn’t have dreamt of a better finish.”
Hyo Joo Kim and Momoko Osato finished on two-under, while big names like Olympic gold medallist Lydia Ko and England's Georgia Hall are lurking on one-under.
