Leader Marina Alex is the target as Australian Robyn Choi and seven others try to hunt her down at the FM Championship.
Alex found the TPC Boston much to her liking by playing bogey-free for a four-under 68, giving her a one-shot lead on Thursday in the inaugural LPGA Tour event.
Choi, former US Women’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz and Lauren Coughlin, a two-time winner on the LPGA this year, are part of the eight-member group on 69.
Of that contingent, only the 26-year-old Choi from Sydney went bogey free.
Choi made birdies on the first, seventh and ninth and is five shots clear of the next best Australian – Hannah Green (74).
Both Corpuz and Coughlin are on the US team for the Solheim Cup in two weeks, and this is their final competition.
Robyn Choi, pictured here during round one of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, is one shot behind the leader in the FM Championship at TPC Boston. PHOTO: Getty Images
Two captain’s picks for the Americans, Lexi Thompson and Sarah Schmelzel, along with Massachusetts native Megan Khang, shot 70.
The TPC Boston hosted a PGA Tour event for nearly two decades, and it took some adjustments with the firm greens and run-off areas.
For Alex, it was a happy adjustment compared with her last two weeks in Scotland. She played the Women’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links and then the Women’s British Open at St Andrews and had to cope with a cold wind at both stops.
St Andrews was particularly brutal and Alex was among those caught on the worst side of the draw. She shot 80 in the opening round, leaving her little chance of making the cut.
“It was tough for a lot of us on some of those waves,” Alex said. “I just felt like I wasn’t going to play a good round of golf again, if I’m being honest.
“It was really good to see some good golf today. It was a break to not play in 30 mph winds. Just to be able to see yourself hit a shot and go where you’re intending is nice.”
Alex said she was happy to “toss the two weeks in Scotland aside.”
“There has been some good golf this year,” she said. “It’s been coming and going, but I’m happy to see a 68 today. I’m hoping that I can kept present for the next three rounds.”
It was a tidy 68, for sure. She made birdies on two of the par 5s, No.7 on the front and No.12 on the back, and picked up birdies on a par-3 on each side. One of them was the 11th to an elevated the green, the other to the water-framed 16th.
Coughlin also was at four under until a bogey on the par-5 18th hole, with the third shot over a creek and severe slopes off some of the edges of the green.
That wasn’t about to spoil her mood. She has won twice this year, the second clinching her spot on her first Solheim Cup team. The matches against Europe are from September 13-15 in Virginia.
