Somi Lee holds a 2-shot lead over Allisen Corpuz at the CME Group Tour Championship after the first round.
Lee shot the lowest round of her LPGA career by firing an 8-under-64. She made back-to-back birdies on three different stretches today, and she was the only player to eagle the par-5 17th hole; her only bogey of the round was on the 18th hole. This is her first start at the CME Group Tour Championship after finishing 10th on the season-long points list.
“It’s an honor playing my first Tour Championship, and I don’t think I was necessarily in a position to be nervous about anything,” said Lee. “I thought to myself, whatever the score is or how I play, let’s just kind of prepare for next year’s season. I think that kind of alleviated the stress in today’s round to be able to get a better score.”
Corpuz was the clubhouse leader after shooting a 66 (-6) earlier this morning. Her lone bogey of the day came on hole 3 but was followed up by four consecutive birdies. The back nine for Corpuz included three birdies and six pars to shoot a 33 heading into the clubhouse.
“Yeah, I think this is just a course where there is a lot of birdie opportunities, so was just telling Jay, it’s last week of year. Like why not see how many we can make and see how high I can finish this week,” said Corpuz.
Defending champion and World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul is in a tie for third with three other golfers at 5-under. She had six birdies and one bogey during the first round. However, the most shocking part of her day was that she revealed to the media after her round that she has a wrist injury from last Wednesday.
“And I think coming to this week I just kind of worry about my wrist, my right wrist,” said Thitikul. “It’s a new position that I had hurt a little bit last week, so just be able to play today has been really bonus.”
Tee times for the second round start at 8:05am ET and have been reshuffled according to score. You can watch starting at 2:00pm ET on the NBC Sports App and 3:00pm ET on Golf Channel.
