Yan Liu, Ashleigh Buhai share lead at 63 in the LPGA Tour's JM Eagle LA Championship
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Yan Liu birdied the final three holes in chilly conditions Thursday afternoon for a 9-under 63 and a share of the first-round lead with Ashleigh Buhai in the LPGA Tour's JM Eagle LA Championship.
With the temperature barely reaching 60 degrees (15.5 degrees Celsius) at El Caballero Country Club, Liu overcame an opening bogey to play the next nine in 7 under — making a 6-foot eagle putt on the par-5 16th and five birdies.
'I got bogey and next hole I tell myself, `You have to be calm and you have to be confident and be brave. You can do it,′' Liu said. 'Yeah, just talk with myself.'
After straight five pars, she birdied the par-5 seventh and made short birdie putts on Nos. 8 and 9. Seeking her first LPGA Tour victory, the 27-year-old Chinese player had the lowest score of her tour career.
'Everything perfect, but not my driver,' Liu said. 'But just little things. Right now my driver is a little too much fade, but I will figure out tomorrow.'
Buhai had nine birdies in her bogey-free morning round. The 35-year-old South African player won the 2022 Women's British Open for the first of her two LPGA Tour victories.
'The pins were in locations we could access them today as long as you use the slopes correctly,' Buhai said. 'If you hit it into the right bowls you'll get good results. Otherwise, you can short side yourself very easily.'
Frida Kinhult birdied the last three holes for a 64 in the second-to-last group of the day off the first tee.
The tournament is being played at El Caballero because of renovations at Wilshire Country Club. It will return to Wilshire next season.
Madelene Sagstrom, coming off a victory two weeks ago in the T-Mobile Match Play in Las Vegas, closed with a hole-on-one to join In Gee Chun, Miranda Wang, Jeongeun Lee6 and Jenny Shin at 65. The ace on the 120-yard ninth was the Swede's first in competition and the only one on the tour this season.
'It's weird because I actually got to see it,' said Sagstrom, who played in the morning alongside top-ranked Nelly Korda and two-time defending champion Hannah Green. 'That's the best part. You get to see it go in.'
Sei Young Kim was at 66 with Lauren Coughlin, Aditi Ashok, Akie Iwai, Saki Baba and Yu Liu.
Korda opened with a 67 in her final start before her title defense next week in Houston in the major Chevron Championship.
'Hit 18 out of 18 greens, so my bogeys were three putts, which I made one on the last hole, so I am not feeling too great about that,' Korda said. 'But other than that, I played really solid off the tee and into the greens.'
Four of the top five in the world ranking are playing the final event on the West Coast swing. Second-ranked Jeeno Thitikul overcame a late double bogey with an eagle in a 68 in the afternoon, and No. 4 Lilia Vu and No. 5 Green each shot 69. No. 3 Lydia Ko skipped the event.
California teenager Asterisk Talley shot 69, playing on a sponsor exemption. She was the runner-up at the Augusta National Women's Amateur. Last year, she was second at El Caballero in the U.S. Girls Junior.
___
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
30 minutes ago
- New York Post
Micah Parson's strong message to Cowboys as extension talks linger: ‘Cost them more'
Yesterday's price is not today's price for Micah Parsons. The Cowboys' star and annual NFL Defensive Player of the Year candidate told All City DLLS that the contract numbers in the handshake agreement that he and owner Jerry Jones previously reached are going to increase because of the delay in finalizing his extension. 'It's going to cost them more,' Parsons said. 3 Dallas Cowboys' Micah Parsons gestures during practice at NFL football minicamp, Tuesday, June 10, 2025, AP The problem is that pass-rushers T.J. Watt (Steelers) and Trey Hendrickson (Bengals) held out of mandatory minicamp as they seek new contracts. Parsons has seen the terms of the deal that Watt is seeking and it tops what he and Jones discussed, according to All City DLLS. Therefore, Parsons has a new bar to clear. The delay, as Parsons understands it, is in Jones reaching out to agent David Mulugheta to finalize the paperwork. Bengals receiver Ja'Marr Chase is currently the highest-paid non-quarterback at $40.25 million per year. 3 Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones arrives ahead of an NFL football owners' meeting, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, AP The Cowboys' delayed approach to finalizing extensions last offseason with quarterback Dak Prescott and receiver CeeDee Lamb cost them millions because the top of the market at every position (even running back these days, thanks to Saquon Barkley) only continues to increase with the inflated salary cap. Instead of learning from their negligence, the Cowboys have taken the same tactic with Parsons, who has been extension-eligible since after the 2023 season. 3 Micah Parsons is waiting to get paid. AP Parsons has 52.5 sacks in 63 games and has made the Pro Bowl in each of his four seasons. He participated last week in minicamp and is due $24 million on his fifth-year option. If the extension is not done by the time that the Cowboys report for training camp on July 21, he reportedly will stage a hold-in where he shows up to avoid accumulating daily fines but does not take the field so as to avoid risking injury.
Hamilton Spectator
33 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Bavuma and Markram swung WTC final in South Africa's favor
LONDON (AP) — Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma didn't have the pleasure of finishing off what they started. No problem. South Africa won the World Test Championship and that's all that mattered to them. It was fitting that Markram and Bavuma led the comeback with the bat as South Africa beat Australia by five wickets by completing a run chase of 282 at Lord's on the fourth day Saturday. They were the linchpins of a batting unit considered to be South Africa's weak point and their partnership of 147 — 143 on Friday — tore the game away from Australia after the bowlers dominated the first two days. But their stand was almost over before it began when Bavuma strained his left hamstring on 9 just before tea on Friday. He was hobbling, struggling to run. Coach Shukri Conrad didn't want Bavuma to continue. 'The coaches thought the wiser decision was to let someone else in who could run properly,' Bavuma said. 'But I thought it was important I stayed out here and put up a total. It could've gone the other way and I could've been criticized but we're here now.' Markram called Bavuma's innings of 65 not out on Friday — ultimately 66 on Saturday — an innings to remember as the captain ran raggedly but batted brilliantly. 'We got the best of the batting conditions,' Conrad said. 'Two-eighty was always going to be a stiff task. But the two pros, Aiden and Temba, stood tall and took us through. I was the one who said Temba shouldn't bat (after the injury) but the partnership was critical, and they know better than the coaches.' Bavuma, the most experienced player in the Proteas and the first Black South African to score a century, has been at ease with himself a lot more since Conrad became the coach two years ago. Together, they have won 11 of 15 tests. Bavuma is unbeaten in 10 tests as a captain. Previously, he struggled with being the hope of a nation, anxious trying to prove something to everyone ahead of himself. When he suffered untimely drops in form at the 2022 T20 World Cup and 2023 ODI World Cup, he was savagely abused on social media and in public. He's silenced his doubters for now. So has Markram. Markram's MVP-winning 136, only his second century away from home in eight years, is expected to give the allrounder who opens the confidence to lift his test reputation to the repute he enjoys in T20s and ODIs. Until this match, Markram was the only South Africa captain to win a World Cup, the under-19 version in 2014. His test career has roller-coastered but he was recalled by Conrad and backed by Bavuma. Markram led the team to the 2024 T20 World Cup final but wasn't scarred by defeat when victory was in sight, another tribute to his resilience. 'Aiden is unbelievable, people have questioned his place, but he has character,' Bavuma said. 'He played (the WTC final) in true Aiden fashion.' Markram was controlled and chanceless in a stay of six hours, 23 minutes on a flat pitch. 'It will rank up there as number one,' he said. 'My test career has been hard going, very stop-start. Weird how things worked out after a duck in the first innings. Need a bit of luck. It's one of the most special days.' ___ AP cricket:
San Francisco Chronicle
38 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Thunder embraced their moments of adversity this season. It paid off in Game 4 of the NBA Finals
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The book is called 'The Obstacle Is the Way.' It's a gift that Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault gave to Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein during a trying time this season, knowing the voracious reader would figure out the meaning. Message delivered. 'I read it and remembered that everything happens for a reason,' Hartenstein said. 'And after that, everything worked out great.' Such has been the story of the Thunder season. Such was the story of Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Faced with the biggest challenge of their season — a 10-point deficit in the second half, staring at a very real chance of the Indiana Pacers grabbing the almost-insurmountable 3-1 lead in the title round — the Thunder, once again, came away saying everything worked out great. Led by a dazzling and frantic finish from the reigning MVP and scoring champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — who had 15 of his 35 points in the final five minutes or so — the Thunder rallied in the fourth quarter to beat Indiana 111-104 on Friday night. The series is now tied 2-2, heading back to Oklahoma City for Game 5 on Monday night, and it's the Thunder who have home-court advantage again. 'That was an uphill game against a great team,' Daigneault said after Game 4 in Indianapolis, simultaneously lauding his team while also raving about the Pacers. 'This is one of the best teams in the league in the last couple months, since All-Star break. They're a hard team to beat here. They're a hard team to beat, period. I thought we gutted it out on a night when we didn't have a lot going, especially offensively.' It was a night when the Thunder made only three 3-pointers and were shooting 45% with about five minutes left before Gilgeous-Alexander got going. He took 11 shots in the final 4:40 — three field-goal attempts, one of them a 3-point try, and eight free throws — and made them all. A perfect finish, on a night when little had gone to plan. 'It's unbelievable," Daigneault said. 'He really didn't have it going a lot of the night. He was laboring. We had a hard time shaking him free. For him to be able to flip the switch like that and get the rhythm he got just speaks to how great of a player he is.' It might not have seemed so to the outside world — those who fixated on things like Oklahoma City's 68-14 franchise-best record, its 16-game lead over its nearest challenger in the Western Conference standings, a record number of double-digit wins and how all of it was led by the MVP and scoring champion in Gilgeous-Alexander. But the Thunder did, in fact, face some adversity this season. They played without Chet Holmgren and Hartenstein for a while during the year. There was some flux to the lineup at times. Everybody probably had some sort of mini-slump along the way. There was a Game 1 loss in the second round to Denver. And Daigneault embraced every bit of that pain, knowing that for the Thunder to get to where they want to go adversity was going to present itself. Like the being-down-10, late-third-quarter sort of adversity that came up in Game 4. Just like Hartenstein was led to believe by the book, everything worked out great. 'We haven't really had to show it a lot this year, with the success we had in the regular season,' guard Jalen Williams said shortly before the team left for the flight back to Oklahoma City, where a huge crowd showed up in the middle of the night to greet the team at the airport — as they often do. 'We've had a lot of ups and downs during the playoffs. We've just learned from those experiences. That is something Mark is really big on; every game you should be able to learn, then the next game you should be able to apply something and get better at it. That's what we're trying to do every time.' The series is far from over and the Thunder know it. Indiana already has won once at Oklahoma City in these finals; surely, the Pacers think they can do it again. And even though the teams finished 18 wins apart in the final standings — OKC won 68 times, Indiana won 50 — it doesn't seem like 18 wins worth of disparity between the clubs right now. Indiana stole Game 1 at the end. Oklahoma City stole Game 4 at the end, albeit not as dramatically as the Pacers took the opener. Game 2 was pretty much controlled by the Thunder throughout; the Pacers had the best of the play for the majority of Game 3. Add it up, and it looks exactly like what it is — a 2-2 series going into Game 5. 'I still feel like we have so much work to do,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'Halfway there, obviously, but still so far from the finish line.' ___
