BUOYED perhaps by her recent Epson Tour campaign, Bianca Pagdanganan brought her hot form to the LPGA Tour on Thursday (Friday in Manila), firing a 6-under-par 66 and tied for second place after the first round of The Standard Portland Classic.
The eagle-laced round was one of her best opening rounds this season where she has moved from one tour to the other in the women’s circuit.
READ Bianca Pagdanganan scores second Top 10 finish on Epson Tour
Though she has an LPGA card, it has some restrictions, and this time she got into the field and took advantage.
Following her fine form in last week’s Epson Tour where she tied for 10th place in the Smoky Mountain Championship, her third top 10 in 10 events, Pagdanganan fired one eagle and seven birdies against two bogeys at the Columbia Edgewater Country Club in Portland, Oregon.
Starting on the 10th hole, Bianca sank her eagle putt on the 5th hole and then scored two more birdies on two of her last four holes for a 33-33 card.
This is only her fifth tournament on the LPGA Tour, but her record had not exactly been exemplary as she has missed three of five cuts in contrast to the Epson Tour, the LPGA’s developmental league where she can play as much as she wants, and where she has made 10 of 10 cuts.
She is tied for second place with four others, one stroke behind surprise leader Mariel Galdiano who hit 14 of 14 fairways and made nine birdies in her round of 65.
Among those tied with Bianca at 66 include contenders Grace Kim and Hye Jin Choi.
Yuka Saso, meanwhile, shot a horrendous 8-over-par 80 and was second to last at 143 in the 144-player field, just a shot better than the last placer.
It’s another confounding round for the one-time Filipino star who some thought had made progress in her otherwise unfortunate season. In her last tournament, Saso tied for 12th and took home $158,889. in the AIG Women’s Open.
Spieth tied for lead at start of FedEx Cup playoffs
Jordan Spieth shot a bogey-free 5-under-par 65 and shared the lead in the first round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first leg of the PGA Tour’s three-tournament playoffs.
Spieth avoided a bogey in his bid to make it to the second round of the playoffs. Spieth is on the bubble for the second straight year. Winless for more than four years, he is at No. 54, but the winner of three majors said he feels different this year.
“I'm just in a very different place about the game of golf than I was the last couple seasons heading into this event,” Spieth said. “Again, if it’s going to work out, great. If it doesn’t, I know next year is going to be an awesome year for me. So it takes a lot of the stress off of this week.”
Also with 65s and tied for the lead were Michael Thorbjornsen, Jake Knapp, Michael Kim and Kurt Kitayama. Like Spieth, Kim is also outside the top 50 which qualify for the second leg at the BMW Championship next week.
A stroke behind at 66 was another cluster of players that includes Tommy Fleetwood, Hidike Matsuya, Gary Woodland and Adam Scott.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler opened with a 68 while No. 2 Rory McIlroy, playing here after missing this event last year and paired with Scheffler, shot a 74 after a bogey-bogey-double bogey finish.
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