Strong '08 start for Ochoa; Donald (64) leads Honda
Top-ranked Lorena Ochoa got off to a fast start in her first round of the season, shooting a bogey-free 6-under 66 on Thursday at Tanah Merah to take a 1-stroke lead in the HSBC Women's Champions in Singapore.
"It was one of those days that I was getting the ball and making good contact especially, had a lot of birdie chances," said Ochoa, an eight-time winner last season. "It was a great start."
The Mexican star skipped the LPGA Tour's opening two events in Hawaii.
"I am 100 percent ready to go," she said. "It's why I took a few more weeks to practice and why I am here."
Paula Creamer, coming off a victory Sunday in the Fields Open in Hawaii, and Japan's Ai Miyazato opened with 67s in the inaugural 78-player event that features 18 of the top 20 players in the world.
"I missed a lot of putts … but the ones that I holed were fairly big breakers," Creamer said. "There's not many straight putts that you have out there."
Miyazato also noted that the Garden course was challenging.
"It's pretty tough," Miyazato said. "The fairways are narrow and the greens are sloppy, but the good thing is I can concentrate on hitting my shots. The shots felt really nice."
Sweden's Linda Wessberg was 2 strokes back at 68 along with South Koreans Kim In-kyung and Lee Jee-young, while Australia's Karrie Webb shot a 69 in her first LPGA Tour start of the year.
Annika Sorenstam opened with a 71. She won her 70th LPGA Tour title at the SBS Open in Hawaii, ending a 17-month victory drought and vaulting her two spots to No. 2 in the world.
Honda Classic: Luke Donald's opening round in the Honda Classic was far from perfect. He missed five greens and seven fairways, including five straight. And conditions at windy, cool PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., were hardly optimal for scoring.
Yet somehow Donald found a way to post the Honda's best score in three years.
A bogey-free 64 gave Donald a 1-shot lead over Brian Davis and a 2-shot edge on Matt Jones after the first round of the Honda -- an event Donald won two years ago when it was at nearby Mirasol, a considerably easier track.
Donald posted the lowest round at a Honda since Padraig Harrington shot a final-round 63 to win in 2005 at Mirasol, and the 64 was the best in 571 tournament rounds since the event moved to PGA National -- where Mark Wilson's winning score a year ago was 5 under. Wilson shot a 73 on Thursday.
Matt Jones (66) was alone in third, 2 shots off the pace, with a slew of others -- including Ernie Els, the world's No. 4 player -- 3 shots back.
Johnnie Walker Classic: Indian caddie-turned-pro Shamim Khan and Argentina's Daniel Vancsik shot 5-under-67s to share the first-round lead in the Johnnie Walker Classic at Gurgaon, India.