Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow have made solid starts to the Evian Championship, the year's fourth major.
Maguire carded an opening 70 on the Evian Resort Golf Club course in eastern France with the Cavan golfer on one under, one shot behind Stephanie Meadow who is five adrift of clubhouse leader Paula Reto of South Africa.
Reto, who carded a seven-under 64, holds a two-shot advantage over the quartet of Alison Lee, home favourite Celine Boutier, world number three Lydia Ko and Wichanee Meechai.
Maguire made a slow start on Thursday with a bogey on the par-3 second hole but rallied towards the end of the front nine, with birdies on seven and nine.
However, successive bogeys on 12 and 13 dropped her back to one over, but she finished strongly with birdies on 15 and 17.
Meadow, meanwhile, also made a slow start with successive bogeys on two and three but birdies on five, seven and nine turned the round in her favour before she managed three more birdies and two bogeys on the back nine.
At the top of the leaderboard, Reto carded eight birdies to easily offset her lone bogey, which came on her second hole of the day.
"This golf course is so fun and the views and everything, it's just awesome tobe here," Reto said.
"You never know out here with this golf course. Anything is possible. You just got to give yourself the best opportunity to make par and birdie."
Defending champion Brooke Henderson of Canada shot a two-under 69 on Thursday and is in a large group tied for 19th that also includes LPGA Tour rookie star Rose Zhang and Sweden's Linn Grant, who won the Dana Open two weeks ago.
Current World No. 1 Jin Young Ko of South Korea and second-ranked Nelly Kordaare six shots off Reto's lead after opening with 1-under 70s.
The Evian Championship is the fourth of five women's majors of the year.
Reto entered the week ranked 81st in the world. A one-time winner on the LPGATour at last year's CP Women's Open, Reto has missed eight of her past 10 cutsin stroke-play events.
However, she did hold the 36-hole lead with teammate Amelia Lewis in lastweek's Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational before ultimately tying for ninthplace.
"Definitely helped," Reto said of the top-10 while paired with Lewis. "We hadsuch a good run. Just feeding off this positive energy, just being around apositive friend is always good. Makes you look forward to certain things."
Reto, 33, has a career-best finish in majors of a T18 at the ChevronChampionship seven years ago. She holds the 18-hole lead at a major for thefirst time in her career, and will have to fend off a leaderboard chock fullof accomplished players.
That includes Boutier, a three-time winner on tour who was born a little morethan five hours southeast of Evian-les-Bains in Clamart, France. Boutier, whois also seeking her first career major title, carded six birdies against alone bogey on Thursday to post her best career round in a major.
This is the seventh start for Boutier in the Evian, where her best previousfinish is a tie for 29th in 2014 and 2021.
"You play mind games with yourself. You just tell yourself you're not athome," she said with a laugh. "Honestly, not over-think it. Try to like thinklike a normal tournament and just approach the course like a regular course."
Lydia Ko, 26, won the Evian Championship in 2015 and put together a cleanscorecard on Thursday that included five birdies and no dropped shots.
The world's third-ranked player entered the week with modest expectations asKo hasn't posted a top-30 finish in her past nine starts on the LPGA Tour.That includes a T65 in her most recent start at the Dana Open.
"I've played this golf course with some of the best ball striking, some of myworst ball striking, and I think because of that, I feel like I've played itin a lot of different spots here," Ko said. "I think the longer you play at agolf course you realize like you make so many different memories, whether it'sgood or bad, and I think I try and draw on the good memories."
Additional reporting: Reuters
