After shooting an opening 66 at The Club at Carlton Woods on Thursday, Lauren Coughlin will sleep on a first-round lead for just the second time in her career, and at a major championship, nonetheless. Making her second start at The Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas, Coughlin went bogey free with three birdies on the front nine (holes 2, 4 and 5) and three on the back nine (Nos. 10, 11 and 18). She was accurate in her approach and with her flat stick, hitting 14 of 18 greens, recording 10 one-putts and needing just 26 putts overall to get through her first round.
“I think my husband and I had a really good game plan, and I wasn't trying to be too aggressive out there. Just trying to take a 30-footer or, I might have a chip here or there, just knowing that that's the appropriate place to be,” said Coughlin, whose husband, John Pond, recently started caddying for her. “Not trying to be too aggressive in certain spots and taking what, certainly there's some holes, good pins and stuff that you can go at stuff, but overall, I was just trying to take what it would give me and not trying to force anything.”
Coughlin is making her 11th appearance in an LPGA Tour major championship this week. The American has made the cut in just two of her 10 previous starts in majors, but finished T15 and T16, respectively, in the 2023 and 2022 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
Two strokes behind Coughlin at -4 are two-time LPGA Tour winner Marina Alex, eight-time JLPGA winner Minami Katsu and major champion Nelly Korda, who is chasing her fifth win in as many consecutive starts on Tour. Korda fared the best of the players in the afternoon wave, who dealt with stronger winds and drier conditions than the morning competitors. She opened with a bogey on her first hole, No. 10, but was -1 at the turn thanks to birdies on 14 and 17. Another mistake on No. 2 was quickly remedied with four birdies in her last six holes.
“Two of them were par-5s, so I got to take advantage of that with my length,” said Korda when asked what clicked for her coming down the stretch. “Hit a really good tee shot, and then I was just on the front of the green on 17, and the other one I was just on the fringe, too. I two-putted pretty much for birdie on those. Then I had wedge shots in on the other two, too. Taking advantage of my length and hitting good tee shots.”
Korda is chasing history at The Chevron Championship, looking to become the first woman since Annika Sorenstam (2004-05) to win in five consecutive starts, and third in the history of the LPGA Tour along with Sorenstam and Nancy Lopez (1978). She would also join the likes of Lorena Ochoa (2008), Sorenstam (2001), Kathy Whitworth (1969) and Mickey Wright (1962, 1963) if she were to win a fourth straight scheduled event on the LPGA Tour.
Five players sit in a tie for fifth, including 2024 rookies Gabriela Ruffels and Jin Hee Im and LPGA Tour veteran Xiyu Lin. Also tied for fifth are Atthaya Thitikul, who is making her 2024 season debut at The Chevron Championship, and Lydia Ko, who will earn a place in the LPGA Hall of Fame with one more win on the LPGA Tour.
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