EWA BEACH, Hawaii — The windier it got, the more Allisen Corpuz and Mariel Galdiano felt at home.
The former teammates at Punahou School navigated Hoakalei Country Club with confidence on Day 1 of the 2023 LPGA Lotte Championship on Wednesday. But the two, making up the local representation in the 11th year of the LPGA's event in Hawaii, have varying degrees of work to do to make it to the weekend.
Corpuz, in her second full year on the LPGA Tour and ranked No. 33 in the world, shot 1-under 71, five shots off the lead shared by Frida Kinhult of Sweden and Natthakritta Vongtaveelap of Thailand. The Kapolei native finished tied for 18th here last year, when it was really gusting in the event's debut at the Ernie Els-designed course.
“It's always a goal just to be in the red,” Corpuz said. “Takes a little pressure off for tomorrow. Hopefully just frees it up a bit so we can go low.”
Galdiano played in the steady wind of the afternoon and just managed to finish her round in the twilight; an artificial light on the 18th green helped she and playing partners Jing Yan and Arpichaya Yubol finish up.
Galdiano, in her first full year on the Epson Tour (the LPGA’s developmental league), is playing this week on a sponsor’s exemption. She started off shaky, alternating pars and bogeys on her first eight holes, but then found a rhythm and parred her final 10 holes to finish at 4-over 76. She’s tied for 110th in the 144-player field and needs to go low Thursday to extend her stay in her first start as a pro in her home state.
“I’d say I was pretty comfortable out there with the wind,” Galdiano said. “There were a few times on the downwind holes I’d still hit it long, so that’s a little frustrating, but I mean everyone had to go through it, so it’s not too much of a big deal.”
Corpuz, who grew up 15 minutes away from Hoakalei, had her parents and some friends walking the Hoakalei fairways with her. Galdiano, a former three-time HHSAA individual golf champion, had her father on the bag and an aunt and some cousins following for support.
The two are old friends who played junior golf together from age 7 or 8. After their Punahou days, they kept in touch as members of rival university teams UCLA (Galdiano) and USC (Corpuz). Sometimes, they’d cross town to meet up for lunch.
They wished each other well this week.
“We send each other messages and say hi when we can, because it’s tough out here,” Galdiano said. “When you see people you know it’s good to kind of connect and know we’re all in this together.”
A shift of the Lotte to the week to before next week’s Chevron Championship – the first major of the year – instead of afterward muted some of the event’s star power this year. None of the world top six women’s golfers are here.
Two-time Lotte champion Brooke M. Henderson of Canada (2019, 2018) is the highest-ranked golfer in the field at No. 7. She shot 1 under Wednesday, one of 17 people to card that score.
Defending champion Hyo Joo Kim, ranked No. 9, was among four who shot 4 under to begin the day.
Corpuz hit all 14 fairways, 13 of 18 greens in regulation and didn’t have to make a sand save out of any of the 112 bunkers that Els designed on the course.
Starting on the back nine, she bogeyed Nos. 14 and 15 to go to 1 over at the turn, but birdied Nos. 1, 5 and 7 to reach as low as 2 under before a bogey on No. 8.
Kinhult and Vontaveelap upstaged the field in the afternoon with 6 unders. Kinhult, who grew up on a small island off the western coast of Sweden, was comfortable in the windy conditions and was bogey free until her final hole, when she mishit a chip shot in rough and it traveled almost nowhere.
"I hit a chip shot like a half a foot, so ... in the stats I was like 9 meters (away), 9 meters," Kinhult said with a laugh. "But these things happen. It was a little fluffy lie and I just didn't hit the ball. Yeah, no, other than that it was pretty solid."
Vontaveelap had the only eagle on the day, at the par-5 No. 5, in a bogey-free round.
Kim, Henderson and Corpuz played together and will tee off Thursday’s second round at 12:39 p.m. at No. 1.
Galdiano tees off at No. 10 at 8:50 a.m.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.