Golf: NZ third at Queen Sirikit Cup

Lydia Ko. Photo / Christine Cornege

New Zealand are in a share of third place after the first round of the Queen Sirikit Cup women's golf team championship in India.

The 33rd Queen Sirikit Cup has attracted 14 nations from Asia Pacific in a 54 hole strokeplay competition with the two best of three scores counting each day.

The New Zealand team shot a six-over 150 for the two best counting scores on a challenging Delhi Golf Club course yesterday, to be five shots behind leaders Korea, who are chasing a remarkable fifth straight victory.

The world champions shot a one-over 145 with three shots back to the Philippines on four-over and a further two shots to New Zealand and Malaysia.

World number three ranked amateur Lydia Ko led the way for New Zealand with a two-over 74, while Cecilia Cho shot a four-over 76 and Waikato's Emily Perry the non-counting 82.

Team captain Libby Steele said the Delhi course played extremely difficult with only two scores under par.

"It demands absolute accuracy off the tee. There's tiger country either side of every fairway so any mistake means you are re-teeing it again," she said.

"There was some wind up today and that proved tough, especially trying to get the ball to hold. The greens are tiered and if you can't get on the right tier it is costly and that was difficult to achieve in the conditions.

"Overall the girls were disappointed when they came off the course. Then they looked at the leaderboard and found out everyone was having similar challenges out there."

She said the girls had a good plan but indifferent execution proved the downfall.

"Lydia had two three-putts and Cecilia had one bad hole and that was the difference."

The team plan a conservative approach off the tee again tomorrow and look to reduce the errors and close the gap on the brilliant Korean combination.

"We are right there in contention so if we can reduce the errors and take full advantage of opportunities then I think we will be more competitive."

Korea's Hyo Joo Kim, the leading individual last year in New Zealand, fired a three-under par 69 while Dottie Ardina (Philippines) shot a one-over 71.

Leading scores, round 1, Delhi Golf Club, par 72:
145 Korea 76 69
148 Philippines 71 76
150 New Zealand (Lydia Ko 74, Cecilia Cho 76, Emily Perry 82), Malaysia 73 77

- NZPA