If one of the sorrowful mysteries of professional women’s golf is why Jeeno Thitikul has never won a Major championship title, the prodigious Thai golfer’s opening bogey-free round of seven-under-par 67 in the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes provided evidence that the former world number one has the solution in her own hands.
Thitikul navigated the links with some authority, as the 23-year-old – a nine-time winner on the LPGA Tour – assumed the first-round lead, two shots clear of Japan’s Shiho Kuwaki and the in-form South Korean Haeran Ryu, winner of both the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the Amundi Evian Championship, both Majors, in her last two outings.
On a generally difficult day for scoring, with just 24 players dipping under par, Thitikul reigned supreme in a round of seven birdies that included a hat-trick from the fourth which allowed her to turn in 31, adding a further three on her homeward run.
In some contrast, current world number one Nelly Korda, winner of the first two Majors of the season at the Chevron and the US Women’s Open, struggled to an opening 73.
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Of the three Irish competitors in the 144-woman field, Leona Maguire, coming in on the back of a top-10 in the Scottish Open, birdied the 18th hole to sign for a two-over 73, which had her just inside the cut line. But Lauren Walsh opened with a 75 and Anna Foster carded a 76 and require improved second rounds to survive into the weekend.
Thitikul, the world number two, won the Smyth Salver as leading amateur as a 15-year-old when the Women’s Open was last staged at Lytham & St Annes in 2018, but the path to a Major breakthrough has yet to materialise.
“I know that I haven’t won one yet, but I feel I’m so young and I don’t know how many Majors ahead of me. I feel like one day it will come if I do my job, keep improving and then I tell when my game is ready to win it. Because I feel like when my time is coming, it should be sweeter than what it felt.
“I always step up in the Major week, I’m not really expecting to win a trophy, because it’s just out of my control. What I can control is if I beat the course every day, I should be in with a good chance to be on the leaderboard.
“If you can put a red number on your scorecard every day, it means you beat the course, and the golf course in a Major week isn’t that easy to beat,” said Thitikul of controlling what she can control when faced with the challenges of links golf.
Thitikul took an important first step in that quest for the elusive Major win with a strong opening round, although Ryu – who missed the US Women’s Open when recovering from minor surgery only to hit hot form on her return with back-to-back wins in the PGA and the Evian – remained very much within touching distance.
Ryu’s 65 featured a front nine like Thitikul’s of 31, containing four birdies. The Korean had not played since her Evian success, opting to take a fortnight’s holiday back home in Seoul, recovered from her sole bogey on the 15th with birdies on the 16th and 18th holes. She is chasing a third straight Major success in consecutive starts, a feat never before achieved in professional golf.
“Before I got the Major win [in the PGA] it was so much pressure and I just wanted to win in a Major. But these days it’s more calm and just [thinking] about after the golf. So that’s why these days my golf is pretty good,” explained Ryu of her mindset.
In the Rocket Classic on the PGA Tour, Peter Malnati opened with a nine-under-par 61 to claim the clubhouse lead, but Waterford’s Séamus Power – competing in the penultimate event of the regular season before the FedEx Cup playoffs – struggled to a 73 which left him in an uphill battle to survive the cut.
