Alison Lee's late eagle and 65 give her Day 1 lead at Meijer LPGA Classic
By Jeff Babineau
BELMONT, Mich. – It wasn’t that long ago that Alison Lee wondered aloud why she even was playing on the LPGA Tour. The pursuit to become a champion was proving fruitless, and when she headed back to the LPGA Final Qualifying to re-earn a card and start anew, it made sense to question why she was doing it.
Partly, Lee was merely staying on the road to her journey, and keeping with the adventure that she had started so many years ago, to have more days like the one she had Thursday at the Meijer LPGA Challenge for Simply Give. The putter was hot, and a strong mental game kept her plugging along even when there wasn’t that much to trust in her golf swing.
Seven birdies and an eagle at Blythefield Country Club were plenty to offset a pair of bogeys as Lee grabbed the opening-day lead. She shot 7-under 65 in mild conditions, making the most of a hot putter and jumping out to a two-shot lead after a large pack of players who shot 67. Lee’s bright smile afterward was confirmation that the trials and tribulations in her journey had been worth fighting through.
At 29, Lee is making progress. Big steps, in fact. No, she still has not won, something she continues to work on, but she is seeing enough signs to tell her to keep working. Thursday in Michigan was one of those days, and the bold goals she set – a spot on the U.S. team that will travel to the Olympic Games in Paris later this summer, and a berth on the U.S. Solheim Cup team that competes in Virginia this fall – actually are within her reach.
“Coming into this week, I didn’t quite feel like myself when it came to my swing,” Lee said. “I wasn’t hitting it the way I wanted to. It was definitely really nice to shoot a low one today. Definitely giving a lot of credit to my putter.”
Lee can smash drives a long way, which is welcome news at a venue such as Blythefield, which features five par 5s and lots of good opportunities to score. She showed off the length at the 466-yard eighth hole, her 17th, where she hit a big tee shot and, with a strong wind at her back, needed only 8-iron to reach the green. That left 15 feet, right up the hill, and Lee knows when to put her head down and just keep climbing. The eagle broke her free from a large pack at 5 under.
But just getting to that point was a larger factor in the round. She did it with a putter that was there from the start, as she required only 24 putts. Birdie at the first hole (par-5 10th), followed by a good par save at 11 and another solid birdie at 12. That got her off and running.
“Confidence is a huge factor,” said Lee, ranked 18th in the LPGA's Rolex Rankings. “There can be some days I don’t feel quite confident. You just have to work with what you got. That’s how I felt today.”
The world ranking will bear watching this week. The cutoff date to qualify for the Olympics falls after next week’s final round of the KMPG Women’s PGA Championship, scheduled for Sahalee, in Seattle. Right now, the U.S. has three players slated to play in Paris (Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu, Rose Zhang). A country can have four players if all are within the top 15 in the ranking. That takes work. Megan Khang is ranked 16th, and Lee 18th.
The morning wave had to wait for a storm with electricity in it to pass through the area, and then the birdies commenced. A group at 67 in the morning included former Meijer LPGA champion Jennifer Kupcho, as well as Solheim Cup standout Carlota Ciganda of Spain. Both players made six birdies to offset a lone bogey. Two-time Meijer champion Brooke Henderson and Lizette Salas joined the 67s in the afternoon, with the course playing tougher.
A group at 68 included 2023 U.S. Women’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz, Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul – and top rookie Gabriela Ruffels, whose round included an eagle-3 at the 497-yard 14th hole. Vu, winner of two major titles in 2023 and second-ranked player on the globe, has been dealing with back issues since late March, but returned with a 69.
Far more shocking was the first-round play of World No. 1 Nelly Korda, who shot 76, the highest round she ever shot at Blythefield, and now is in danger of missing consecutive cuts; she missed at the U.S. Women’s Open in Pennsylvania two weeks ago. Again, Korda was done in with a poor start, this time standing 4 over par on the fourth tee.
In 20 previous rounds at Blythefield, a venue where Korda set a tournament scoring record (25 under) just two years ago, she never had shot higher than 72 previously.
Defending champion Leona Maguire, who has finished 2-2-1 at Meijer the last three years, played alongside Korda in the windier, more difficult afternoon rounds, and shot 72. She double-bogeyed the par-4 ninth hole and followed by making another 6 at the par-5 10th, but saved her round with an eagle-3 at the 18th hole.
Henderson, trying to become Meijer’s first three-time champion, opened by shooting 67. She had several highlights to her round, which included two eagles (Nos. 8 and 18). At the par-5 14th hole, she reached the green after hitting driver-driver, then two-putted for birdie.
“It was playing really tough today,” said Henderson, who first won the Meijer in 2017, and again two years later. “I feel like minus-5 in the afternoon wave was a bit of a bonus. I'm happy and hopefully to just carry it forward.”
