Australian Nikki Campbell shares the lead with defending champion Line Vedel in the first round of the Allianz Ladies Slovak Open presented by Respect on Thursday.

Campbell, who spent 10 years plying her trade on the LPGA of Japan, with two wins and 30 top 10 finishes to her credit, also said that trusting the line of the putts on the undulating greens was important.

The highlights of her round included “a really long putt on 17 that curled about four metres,” and a sensational up and down on the difficult sixth green.

“On six I hit a seven-iron in and I didn’t quite catch it, it caught the front edge,” Campbell explained. “The green is quite treacherous from the front to the back so I had to hit a chip shot barely about three metres and it rolled all the way down the hill to a metre and a half.

“I hit it and didn’t think it was going to get there but just trickled over and went down to just over a metre and I made par so that was a highlight.”

Off the other Australians in the field, Rebecca Artis and Alison Whitaker are T32 at 1 over par whilst Bree Arthur and Whitney Hillier are T51 at 3 over par. The projected cut is at 3 over par.

New Zealander Cathryn Bristow finished 6 over par (T85) and Aussies Stephanie Na (T98), Karen Lunn (T101) and Sarah King (T110) have some work to do to make it to the weekend.