Moriya Jutanugarn leads round one of the LPGA Qualifying School’s Final Stage
Moriya Jutanugarn, the winner of the Stage-I of the LPGA Qualifying School, carded a four-under par 68, to share the lead after round one of the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament.
The tournament is being played at the Champions and Legends courses at LPGA International, featuring a total of 122 players, competing for the LPGA cards.
The field mainly includes qualifiers from the Stage-I and the Stage-II of the Qualifying School, and the players who finished in the top-20, excluding the top-10, in the Symetra Tour money list.
In addition to that, some of the current LPGA members are also participating in the event, in a bid to improve their status for the upcoming season.
According to the LPGA’s qualifying policy, only the top-40 and ties to finish the tournament will be allowed to retain or earn their full-time playing rights for the 2013 season.
However, all the qualifiers will not receive full-time playing rights. Instead, only the top-20 players to finish the 90-hole event will be allowed to participate in every tournament on the 2013 LPGA roster.
Playing on the Legends course, Jutanugarn got off to a disappointing start, having conceded a bogey on the second hole.
She then parred each of the next five holes, prior to picking up pace on the eighth hole. The Thai star recorded back-to-back birdies on the eighth and the ninth hole to reach the turn in one-under.
On the back nine of the course, she added another three shots to her scorecard, on the 12th, 14th and the 16th hole, to finish the day on a high note.
Kim Welch and Kathleen Ekey were the other two players who posted the same score to share a one-stroke lead over Rebecca Lee-Bentham and Ashleigh Simon.
Welch was the surprise leader after day one, as she reached the last two holes of the day with just a one-under par score.
She then recorded a birdie on the 17th hole, and followed that with a sparkling eagle on the final hole, to make a strong charge on the leaderboard.
At the end of day one, a total of 16 players managed to finish within two strokes off the lead.
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