Strong front nine moves Lydia Ko into lead at women’s Canadian Open

Icher, who grabbed the first-round lead with a seven-under 65 late in the day on Thursday, knows she won’t be getting any gift-wrapped first-place cheques from Ko this weekend.

“If I can continue to build off the crowd’s energy the next couple of days, I think it will be good”, Henderson said.

Ko, who won at Vancouver Golf Club as a 15-year-old in 2012, made a pair of birdies on each nine of a steady round. “She is not going to give it to me”. “I was above some of them today”.

The 36-year-old has never won on the LPGA Tour and hasn’t finished in the top 10 in an event this year.

“It’s been average”, she shrugged. Hit one shot at a time and just have fun out there.

“We will see what happens at the end of the day”. The four-time LPGA Tour victor added birdies on Nos.

An erratic round of 75 left her at one-over-par 145, right on the number, and she had to be extra good on the closing holes, including a delicate up-and-down out of the greenside rough for par at her final hole, the severely canted 9th, to survive to play the weekend.

“I played well the last two days. There was a lot of attention on me and it made my week a little bit busier than it was planned to be, but it is a great problem to have”. But they were there pretty much from the get go.

2 Ko shot a five-under 67 to be the clubhouse leader through much of the first round before being passed by French rival Karine Icher.

“I was happy to finish with the birdie on 18”, she said “It makes you feel good about the round even though I shouldn’t”.

Henderson ran into some trouble on the front nine when she bogeyed two holes but recovered on the back nine.

“There has been a lot of positives this week, which is always good”, she said.

“I feel very blessed for the opportunities I’ve been given and I think this is just another week where I need to learn from it, get better and move on”. Other than that it could have been good. To be able to play the way I did today, especially with Jordan in my group, I could tell that he was the favorite.

Henderson had a bogey on the second hole, then hit the water on No. 3 for a double-bogey. She added birdies on the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth to tie the course record set by Nancy Scranton in her 1991 Du Maurier Classic victory, which was also matched by Chella Choi in 2012. The 17-year-old Smiths Falls, Ont., native received a thunderous ovation when she was introduced on the first tee and large crowds followed her throughout her afternoon round.

Kung tied for second last week in Portland, Oregon, eight strokes behind Canadian teen Brooke Henderson. Maude-Aimee Leblance shot 71 and joined Henderson at 1-over.