LPGA Tour starts have been few and far between for Stephanie Meadow on the LPGA Tour in 2024 as she was on the outside looking on most of the early season, limited field Asian events, but she’s making the most of her opportunity this week at the Blue Bay LPGA at Jian Lake on Hainan Island.
The Jordanstown woman has just had four competitive rounds thus far in 2024, finishing tied for 49th at the Drive On Championship in Florida back in late January, and though there was a little rust in the system, the good outweighed the bad as she fired an opening two-under round of 70 to move inside the top 20.
Starting round one on the 10th tee, Meadow opened her birdie account at the par-3 11th, but immediately gave the shot back on 12, but further birdies at 14, 15 and 17 saw her make the turn for home at -3 on the day. Another birdie at the first took her to -4 and provisionally inside the top 10, but disaster struck on the par-5 third, where a double-bogey seven undid much of the good work.
From here, she’d trade a birdie at seven with a bogey at nine, and her two-under tally got her into the clubhouse in a tie for 20th, five off the lead and within two shots of eighth place. She’ll be a little disappointed with her par-5 scoring, however, covering the four longer and traditional scoring holes in one-over, making just one birdie and that aforementioned double bogey.
Still, it was a more than acceptable result after almost six weeks on the sidelines and playing in the afternoon where scoring proved tougher with the wind becoming much more of a factor. Plus, the vast majority of those ahead of her on the leaderboard are competition sharp.
The sharpest of these on the day was Australian Minjee Lee who birdied seven holes and went bogey free for the opening round, and her 65 sees her take a one shot lead over the Chinese duo Ruixin Liu and Miranda Wang and American Sarah Schmelzel.
“Yeah, we were really fortunate with very calm conditions starting the day,” said Lee, “so tried to take advantage of the nice conditions. And I think I turned in 4-under, so that was nice, and finished with 3-under on the back.”
In form Lydia Ko continues her impressive start to the year with an opening 68, and the LPGA rankings leader feels that finding the right portion of the green will be key to success at Blue Bay this week.
“There are some greens with some pin positions that like is actually really hard to stay on the same tier,” she said. “I think how the rules officials are going to set up the golf course and where they put the pins are going to dictate the scores a lot.”
