Brooke Henderson of Canada is atop the leaderboard with an 8-under 62 after the first round Thursday of The Annika at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla.
Henderson is one shot ahead of world No. 4 Jin Young Ko of South Korea, Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand, Minami Katsu of Japan and Emily Kristine Pedersen of Denmark, tied for second at 7-under 63.
The $3.25 million tournament purse — the largest on the LPGA Tour outside the five majors and the CME Group Tour Championship — drew a strong field. Lexi Thompson is part of a tie at 6-under 64, while U.S. Women’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz and South Korean veteran In Gee Chun are in a massive group at 4-under 66.
They’re all looking up at Henderson, who rolled in nine birdies against a single bogey on Thursday. She also hit all 18 greens in regulation.
“Up until this year, ball-striking has definitely been a strength of mine, and hasn’t been as sharp as I would like the last couple months,” Henderson said.
“I made an iron switch not too long ago, and as I mentioned, kind of trending in the right direction. So to hit all 18 greens is kind of more what I used to be used to a little while ago. It feels amazing not to have to get up and down and give myself a lot of birdie opportunities.”
After starting on the back nine and making three straight birdies at Nos. 12-14, she hit her lone snag with a bogey at No. 18. Not only did she recover on the next hole, she put six birdies on the card for a front-nine 29.
“Today felt really great to be making a lot of birdie putts,” the two-time major champion said. “Nice to see the ball go in the hole. And especially on my back nine today, which is actually the front nine, made a lot of birdies coming in, and bonus to get the one on No. 9. It was a long one and definitely glad to hit the hole because it was cruising.”
Ko, who has two wins on the season, made seven birdies in a bogey-free round.
“I wasn’t play well much, but I didn’t play good last year, so I, yeah, I thought my golf game is like done right now, it’s going to be,” Ko said. “Like a lot of my friends around, they said, ‘No, it’s your time for next year.’ So they keep it up to me, and I practice really hard with my coach.”
Pedersen had a more colorful card with seven birdies, two bogeys and an eagle 2 at the par-4 eighth hole.
“Actually started off missing a 5-footer on the first and a 3-footer on the second,” Pedersen said. “Then I kind of got a little bit of momentum. Hit a good one on 6, birdied 7 and then kind of luckily I think it went into the pin a little bit hard on 8 for the eagle, but I’ll take it.”
Two-time defending champion Nelly Korda, who’s still searching for her first win of 2023, opened with a 3-under 67. She was tied with other notables like two-time major winner Lilia Vu, New Zealand star Lydia Ko and Ireland’s Leona Maguire.
This is the final tournament before next week’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. The top 60 players in the standings after this week will qualify.
–Field Level Media