Artis Leads Bing Lee Fujitsu Women`s NSW Open
New South Wales Rebecca Artis fired a flawless round of five-under-par 67 to sit atop of the leaderboard after the first round of the Bing Lee Fujitsu Women’s NSW Open.
After her round, Artis gave credit to her husband, and caddie, Geoff who wanted her to do one thing this week, that was to listen to him, she did, and now she leads the tournament at Oatlands Golf Club in Sydney.
The 2013 Helsingborg Open champion is one clear of Spaniard Mireia Prat and after her round chatted about the deal she had with her other half,
“We had a bit of deal coming into this week, that I listened to him 100% and basically play the game he wanted me to play and it worked alright out there today, so maybe I’ll do more of that tomorrow. I should maybe listen to him more often.”
She was pleased with her day, “It was a very solid day, I hit the ball quite nicely, I got it going early, I knocked one to a reasonable distance on two, the long par three and got that one. I knocked it close on three and missed that one and that was a little disappointing, but I took advantage of the short par 5 and then birdied the par 3 after that. I rolled some pretty good putts out there, I could see the line early and my ball striking was fairly solid as well.”
Two shots adrift is a group of six players, NSW’s trio of Sarah Kemp, Tamie Durdin and Julia Boland, England’s Holly Clyburn, Switzerland’s Fabienne In-Albion and defending champion Joanna Klatten.
The defending champion was happy with her day, “I am pretty happy, I was offensive like I said I was going to be and it paid off quite a few times, I had six birdies. I only had one bad hole, 15th, so I pretty pleased with that start.”
Another seven players are at two under-par including three amateurs Shelly Shin, Elizabeth Elmassian and Jenny Lee. NSW’s Rachel Hetherington is at one-under and tied for 16th.
12 year-old Belinda Ji had a tough initiation to professional golf, she carded a 12 over-par.
The cut will be made after Saturday’s second round to the top 50 professionals and ties.