Local favourite Budsabakorn Sukapan shot a superb opening round of 5 under par 67 to take a one-stroke lead over fellow Thai star Pannarat Thanapolboonyaran, and amateur Arpichaya Yubon at the Idemitsu SAT Thailand LPGA Masters 2016

The 19-year-old from Bangkok, who is a former runner-up of this championship played flawless golf in the humid but fine conditions this morning at the Panya Indra Golf Club. She made two birdies on her opening nine, at the 3rd and 9th holes to make the turn in 34, followed by further birdies at the 10th and 15th before closing with another on the final hole.

Sukapan, who has two international tournament victories to her name, the Srixon International and the CTBC Ladies Open competed as a rookie on the LPGA Tour in 2016. At her most recent outing at the Canadian Pacific Open a few weeks back she finished in a tie for 37th place indicating that she would be one of the players to watch this week.

The leading ALPG player after round 1 was Canada`s Kyla Inaba, an ALPG International member. Inaba shot a solid 3 under par 69 to be just 2 shots off the pace, while South Australian Kristalle Blum finished her first round as a professional at 3 over par, and is still in the hunt to make her first paycheck this week. 

After tomorrow`s 2nd round there will be a cut to 50 players plus ties who will compete in the final round on Friday.

Round two will commence at 7:00am tomorrow morning. Live scoring can be found here, http://livescore.maxxintersports.com/live.aspx?disp=0

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