American Paula Creamer birdied nine of her last 11 holes en route to a sizzling 11-under-par 60 during the opening round of the 1.3 million dollar LPGA Jamie Farr Classic on Thursday.
The 60 was one shot off the LPGA Tour record set by Annika Sorenstam in the second round of the 2001 Standard Register PING on a par-72 Highland Meadows Golf Club course.
"I haven't been really able to make too many putts in the past couple of weeks, but I guess I saved them all up for today," Creamer said. "I was always in the zone. It was only in the last couple of holes when I started to think about (the score)."
In order to reach the hallowed mark of 59, Creamer needed to hole out an iron shot from the fairway on the last hole. Instead, she sank a 20-foot birdie putt to conclude the best round of her career.
The 21-year-old smashed her previous low round on the LPGA Tour by four shots. She also matched the tour record for nine holes with a 27 on the front nine.
"There were a couple of putts out there that went away," Creamer said. "I missed one five-footer straight up the hill at the 11th. There were definitely more birdies, but I'll take the 60."
Enjoying a banner season with two wins and seven top-10s in 15 events, Creamer holds a commanding five-shot lead over Eun-Hee Ji and Gloria Park, who each signed for a 65 during the first round.
"I haven't been very good the last couple of tournaments," Park said. "I've started hitting better and am feeling really good. I'm glad I finished it today before the weather started getting bad."
The round was halted due to lightning with 21 players yet to finish their opening 18 holes.
Katie Futcher is the closest of those players to the top of the leaderboard, going three-under through her first 15 holes. She is currently in a nine-way tie for ninth.
Eva Dahllof and Young Kim are tied for fourth after carding a five-under 66 and three players are in a tie for sixth at four-under.
Se Ri Pak, who owns a record-tying five titles at this event, carded a first-round 68. The South Korean had held the previous course record of 10-under 61.
"This golf course is forgiving. You can go really low," Pak said.
Pak won here for the first time in 1998 and repeated the following year.
She added victories in 2001, 2003 and last season, and shares the record as the only player to win the same event five times with Mickey Wright (Sea Island Open, 1957-58, 1960, 1962-63) and Sorenstam, who has done it at two different
events (Mizuno Classic, 2001-05; Samsung World Championship, 1995-96, 2002, 2004-05).
