The players enjoy carding them, the fans love seeing them.
Birdies were in abundance at the opening round of the 2nd annual Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic.
Defending champion Katherine Kirk started right where she finished a year ago, in the lead, after blistering Thornberry to the tune of a tournament record tying 10 under par 62, her career best 18 hole score.
Going off in the morning wave, Kirk piled up seven of her ten birdies on the front nine, going out in 29 and tacked on three more including a tap in on the par five 9th, her final hole of the day. Kirk won last year’s Classic at -22 and she’s almost halfway there after day one.
Sei Young Kim is one shot back at -9, 63, the same score she put up in the final round last year. Kim bunched all of her birdies together, piling up six in a row on holes 11-16.
Two shots off the lead are Brittany Marchand and Megan Khang at -8, 64.
At lucky number 7 under are 7 more players including Brooke Henderson who finished sixth at last weekend’s major, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Henderson went bogey free on the day. Also at 65 are Peiyun Chien, Carlota Ciganda, Ayako Uehera, Austin Ernst, Sandra Gal and LPGA rookie Emma Talley.
Talley earned her tour card by finishing 9th on the Symetra Tour money list last year, including a win at the Island Resort Championship at the Sweetgrass Golf Club in Harris, Michigan last June.
Ten more players are at -6, 66 including Ariya Jutanugarn, the current Race to the CME Globe points leader and veteran Christina Kim. Another dozen are at 67 making it a total of 33 players in the field at -5 or better, and the tournament is just getting started.
Only 18 players failed to break par but one of them was last week’s major winner, Syung Hyun Park who bogeyed the 18th to finish at +2, 74.
The youngest player in the field, 13 year old amateur Alexa Pano, made her LPGA debut and shot three over 75.
With greens softened by Wednesday night rains, coupled with accesible pin placements, the scores went extremely low on opening day Temperatures in the 80’s the rest of the weekend might firm up the greens but the question is just how low will these ladies go?
