A Lim Kim, who was in her teens when she began her professional career on Korea\u2019s mini tour Dream circuit, opened the HSBC Women\u2019s World Championship at Sentosa with a four-under-par 68 which was quite literally the stuff of dreams. She finished the day one shot clear of an on-form Charley Hull who had been up \u2014 and running \u2014 since six o\u2019clock in the morning.<\/p>\n
The highlight of Kim\u2019s win had to be the 10 yard putt she slotted at the15th to go to five under par, only to drop a shot at the 16th after knocking her drive into the water. When she missed the putt she needed to salvage a par at that hole, there was a typical Kim touch as a lovely smile was accompanied by an exasperated shrug of the shoulders.<\/p>\n
Kim had a wire-to wire win at the Hilton Grand Vacations tournament at the start of the year.\u00a0 However, the result of her career thus far came back in 2020 when, because of Covid, the top 100 on the World Rankings \u2014 she was 94th at the time \u2014 were allowed to play in that year\u2019s US Open without going through qualifying.\u00a0 She seized the chance to compete in what was her first LPGA event and, though five shots behind going into the last round, she had three birdies in the last three holes to be the most unexpected of winners.<\/p>\n
The weather was manageably cooler today than it had been earlier in the week but a difficult wind was conspiring with some testing pin positions to make Asia\u2019s major look anything but minor. Surely, there has to come a day when it becomes the women\u2019s sixth world major?<\/p>\n
Kim saw the wind as \u201ca lot of swirling\u201d, while the fact that it was not consistent made it hard to read. \u201cBut I have three more days to learn,\u201d\u00a0 Did she think the wind had made it tough for everyone at a time when slow play is no longer acceptable?\u00a0 She did. \u201cEverybody is facing the same tough situation because we couldn\u2019t control it. We are not AI!\u201d<\/p>\n
Hull could not have been feeling more up for her first round. After completing her early morning 5K run \u2014 \u201cIt got my heart pumping and made me feel loose and like I was one step ahead of everyone\u201d – she went along with her boy-friend\u2019s suggestion that she should finish the opening round in the top five to keep him happy, \u201cI was just trying to climb that leaderboard all the way round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Give Hull some tough conditions and she is in her element. \u201cI just dig deep and stay patient with myself. What plays to my game is that I was able to catch some of the longer holes with my irons – and I\u2019m a good long iron player.\u201d<\/p>\n
The highlight of her 69 came at the 18th, a hole which has become more menacing than ever, what with an additional bunker adding to the cluster of traps on the left of the fairway. Hull avoided all of them, only to catch one by the green. With the crowd revelling in her perfectly-played recovery, she got up and down for the closing birdie which took her comfortably inside the boyfriend\u2019s top five target.<\/p>\n
Four players, Gaby Lopez, Hye Jin Choi, Ruoning Yin and Minjee Lee are one behind Hull and one ahead of Lydia Ko. Lopez said that she had revelled in the windy weather because it made her \u201cstay disciplined and stay in the present.\u201d<\/p>\n
But of all the lessons to be learned from the first round, it had to be Hull\u2019s suggestion that a 5K run can make you feel one up on everyone else before you even start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Lim Kim, who was in her teens when she began her professional career on Korea\u2019s mini tour Dream circuit, opened the HSBC Women\u2019s World Championship at Sentosa with a four-under-par 68 which was quite literally the stuff of dreams. She finished the day one shot clear of an on-form Charley Hull who had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n