World No. 2 Nelly Korda found another gear over the back half of her round to build a two-shot advantage after one round of play at the Chevron Championship, the first major of the women’s golf season, Thursday in Houston.
Korda pocketed two birdies over Nos. 10-18 to begin her round before heating up from there. Korda sank three straight birdies on Nos. 1-3, then added a pair on the seventh and eighth to finish her round 7-under-par 65.
The soggy Memorial Park Golf Course has endured significant rainfall this week. Korda got in some extra work in the rain earlier in the week and felt that contributed to her hot start.
“Tuesday I came out and putted in the rain when we were allowed to before the pro-am and also Wednesday,” Korda said. “It feels good to put a good round together.”
In four LPGA starts this season, Korda has won the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and followed that with three straight second-place finishes.
“I feel like I have a really great team around me,” said Korda, who’s searching for her third career major. “… So I think just there is a comfort and happiness inside me that makes me happy on the golf course, too.”
Tied for second at 5 under are Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit and South Korea’s Somi Lee.
Tavatanakit began her day with two birdies among her first three holes and never wavered, despite coming into the tournament with just one top-10 finish to her credit. That came last time out, when she finished in a tie for fifth at the JM Eagle LA Championship.
She added birdies on Nos. 8, 15 and 17 in a bogey-free performance.
“I feel like that is the definition of golf a little bit, is like you’re not going always have it your way,” Tavatanakit said. “How you can kind of scramble around and put a round together matters more than how you actually are striping it or how actual, you know, your game is.”
Lee, a winner at the 2025 Dow Championship, carded six birdies and was in line for an even better finish before she suffered a bogey on her final hole of the day, the ninth.
“I remember like my first hole … the first birdie going in gave me — boosted me a lot of the confidence and that helped me a lot,” Lee said.
Amateur Farah O’Keefe is part of a group of four more golfers three shots back at 4 under. Like Lee, she suffered a bogey on the troublesome ninth to counterbalance her five-birdie day. She is tied with France’s Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, Japan’s Yuri Yoshida and China’s Yan Liu.
A whopping 10 players are tied for eighth at 3-under 69: Ryann O’Toole, Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen, France’s Nastasia Nadaud, Japan’s Sora Kamiya, England’s Mimi Rhodes, Linnea Strom and Maja Stark of Sweden and South Korea’s Yunseo Yang, Ina Yoon and Jin Hee Im. Yang is also an amateur and eagled her first hole of the championship.
Defending champion Mao Saigo of Japan struggled to a 1-over 73.
