Karine Icher - Photo © T.Plassais / swing-feminin.com

First tour stopped in the middle of the afternoon

It is only provisional but it is always good to have a Frenchwoman at the top of the leader's edge of a Major. With a 67 card, enamelled with seven birdies for two bogeys, Karine Icher has launched herself in an ideal way in her 12th ANA Inspiration. Leaving early in the morning, she avoided the rise of strong winds which led the organizers to interrupt the game in the middle of the afternoon, at 15 p.m. local time, while quite a few big names on the circuit were only their first holes…

A blow in front of Michelle Wie and three South Koreans

Icher, with this first round completed in 67, was ahead of four players at 68: American Michelle Wie and South Koreans Eun Jeong Seong (amateur), So Yeon Ryu and Sung Hyun Park. Always as regular in her statistics with 10 fairways affected out of 14 on the drive accuracy side and also 14 greens achieved in regulation, the player from Châteauroux, with only 27 putts, was able to equal her best card on the Dinah Shore Course (67 in the 3rd tour in 2012).

In the light, 14 years after Patricia Meunier-Lebouc

Since Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, unforgettable winner of the “ANA” in 2003 (the first Major of the season was then called the Kraft Nabisco Championship), we had not seen a French player thus highlighted at Rancho Mirage, in this California desert studded with golf courses. The opportunity for the American media to recall that Icher, 44th at the last Olympic Games of 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, has 43 top10 on the US circuit but still no victory.

A decisive putting for the only Frenchwoman engaged

"I'm probably the player who managed the most top 10 without ever having managed to win," she agreed to the microphones, so I'm used to it. I will now refocus on my game and try to put in more putts, that's the key to everything. Definitely. If you put it well, you make a score. It's the secret. " Remember that Karine Icher is the only French woman entered this week in the first Major of the season.

Before the game was stopped: Lydia Ko 8th, Ariya Jutanugarn 64th

The end of the first round continues this Friday from 7:30 am in California (16:30 pm in France). We will particularly follow the defending champion, New Zealander Lydia Ko, stopped yesterday at hole n ° 5 when she was 8th (tied at -2 with Suzann Pettersen at n ° 6 or Charley Hull at n ° 7…) . And of course the Thai Ariya Jutanugarn, leader of the start of the 2017 season and who was provisional 64th with +1 at hole n ° 7. The winds are supposed to weaken and allow the players to continue their second round ...

By Nathalie Vion

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