Stephanie Meadow’s up-and-down season continued with an opening 74 at Shanghai’s Qizhong Garden Golf Club in which the Jordanstown native made two birdies and an eagle, yet ended the day on +2.
Meadow, who currently lies 71st in the Race to CME Globe rankings, needs to move into the top 60 to secure a place in the season-ending, big money CME Group Tour Championship in five week’s time, and was hoping that she could secure her place in this the first of four Asian events on the LPGA circuit.
Starting her round on the 10th, an opening birdie was cancelled out by a bogey on 11, but she’d make an eagle-three on the 13th to get to -2. Despite hitting 14 of the 18 greens in regulation, she was having little luck on the greens and a bogey at the 16th was followed by two more at one and two as she slipped the wrong side of par.
Another birdie at seven took her back to level-par for the day, but a costly double bogey at the eighth was followed by a par-five at the last and she signed for a two-over 74 that leaves her in a tie for 60th in the 81 player field.
Fortunately, she doesn’t have a cut to worry about, but with time running out to play her way into the final event, she can’t afford to miss the opportunity to put ranking points on the board in the limited field Shanghai event.
Swedish Solheim Cup star Maja Stark and Thailand’s Wichanee Meechai set the pace with opening six-under 66s, the former going bogey-free with six bridies and the latter posting back-to-back eagles on 17 and 18 which got her round going before closing the day out with back-to-back birdies on eight and nine.
2019 is the last time that the LPGA has visited Shanghai, and defending champion Danielle Kang is once again enjoying her visit to the People’s Republic of China. The US Solheim Cup star was clinical in putting together a bogey-free four-under to lie tied for third along with nine others.
“It gave me so much confidence,” Stark said of her Solheim Cup experience and how she hopes it’s taking her career to another level. “Being able to hit those putts with so much pressure, it just makes you feel like this is the easiest thing ever, because we don’t have thousands of people watch and a whole continent rooting for you, which is also weird.
“When you’re out here you are usually alone. Maybe a few people rooting for you. Yeah, feels so nice being able to hit good shots with that pressure. Now pressure doesn’t exist anymore feels like in normal tournaments.”
Whilst most of the Solheim Cup competitors have teed it up on the LPGA circuit in the weeks following, this was Stark’s first outing and she really enjoyed the extended break.
“It was pretty nice,” she explained. “I think it was needed. I haven’t played a normal tournament in five weeks. I think I’ve been longing for a break like that during the season, but it’s so hard to give myself a break. I don’t think anyone has really taken that much time off unless they’ve been injured.
“It’s been really nice to be able to refocus and really think through what I’ve done during the year and what happened at Solheim, because I felt like at Solheim I was a way different player than I used to be. I moved on from stuff more quickly. I managed to figure stuff out during the round sometimes.
“It felt like every putt was so important so I just tried to keep that going and keep that out here and just actually think about what it’s for and not just, oh, this is for birdie. No, this is actually — this could be the winning putt. This could be really important.”
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