New Las Vegas resident Rose Chan felt right at home at Shadow Creek during Wednesday’s T-Mobile Match Play opener.
She shot a 5-under 67, the second-best round of the day, and was one stroke behind Korea’s Kim Se-young after the first day. She is tied for second place with Daniel Kang.
“I felt like I was just hanging in there,” Chan said of the round.
“I came in with a really good game plan, but when you’re attacking the pin, it’s hard to hit the pin on this golf course, so it was pretty special to be able to hit the target and play with the iron.”
Zhang made four consecutive birdies on the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th holes, jumping up the leaderboard from 1 under to 5 under and emerging into the top position.
“I’ve been able to pin seek a little bit more. I’m really confident in my irons and I was able to get some good yards,” Zhang said of his string of birdies at the end.
Photo by: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images
“So, taking all of that into consideration, I was able to get some putts within 5, 6 feet, maybe 3 feet, and that really helped me. Then I took advantage of that last long putt.”
This week’s events on the LPGA Tour will be different, starting with the first round being held on Wednesday instead of Thursday. However, after the second round on Thursday, a tie for the top 65 will be determined after a 36-hole cut. After the third round on Friday, only the top eight players after 54 holes will advance.
The eight-man match play event begins Saturday, with quarterfinals in the morning and semifinals in the afternoon.
The two remaining players will face off in Sunday’s final.
“There’s definitely going to be a change in strategy, but we know the weather is going to change a little bit over the next few days,” Chan said of the format.
“So keeping that in the back of your mind and trying to follow through with it, that’s the most important thing when you’re trying to make a cut. That’s really all you can think about. Especially on very difficult courses, courses with difficult ups and downs, you have to do everything you can to the best of your ability.”
Shadow Creek, which first hosted The Match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in 2018, disrupted much of the field on Wednesday. Only 14 of the 96 participants finished under par.
Even newly elected world No. 1 Nelly Korda struggled a bit. He opened with a 1-over 73.
The second round of the LPGA’s T-Mobile Match Play will be broadcast live on Golf Channel starting at 7:00 pm ET.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.Be sure to check it out @_PlayingThrough Cover more golf. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko In the same way.
