The Royal Beroun Golf Club, just over 30 kilometres from Prague, in Beroun, is the venue for the twelfth event of the season on the Ladies European Tour. The Tipsport Czech Ladies Open teed off this Friday with 132 players from 34 different nationalities in the field, with three rounds ahead and a strong Spanish representation making their mark from day one, with two players in the top 10 of the leaderboard and a third well-positioned for the weekend when the title will be decided.
Luna Sobrón (-5), with a very solid round of 67 strokes featuring seven birdies and two bogeys, and Harang Lee (-5), with a sensational finish to her round, have started strongly in pursuit of their first victory of the season. The Balearic golfer, starting from the 1st tee, completed her first nine holes with four under par and no mistakes. A birdie on the 11th took her to five under, and from there, she responded with birdies to each of her two only errors to finish three off the lead. The Basque player, on the other hand, began her round on the 10th tee with two consecutive birdies. She made bogeys on the 14th and 1st to return to par for the day, but closed her round with five birdies between the 3rd and 9th to also place herself in 6th position tied with Luna and four other rivals.
Nuria Iturrioz (-4) achieved up to seven birdies in this first round, but a double bogey on the 16th and a bogey on the 2nd took their toll. Even so, she is just a step away from the top 10 and in the fight, only four strokes behind the Irish Amandeep Drall (-8), the sole leader of the tournament after the first 18 holes with a great card of 64 strokes with nine birdies and one bogey. She leads the leaderboard by one stroke over the English players Lianna Baley (-7) and Florentyna Paker (-7). The favourite, Sara Kouskova (-2), who comes from winning the Jabra Ladies Open and the Tenerife Women’s Open, her last two appearances, and is vying to climb to the top of the Order of Merit, has started with a round of 70 strokes, six off the lead.
Marta Sanz (-1), María Hernández (-1), and Amaia Latorre (-1) are the other three Spanish players who played under par this Friday in the Czech Republic, while Blanca Fernández (+2), Carmen Alonso (+3), and Clara Moyano (+5) have not been able to beat the course and will have to come back from tomorrow in a tournament where a year ago, another player from our country, Marta Martín, claimed her first victory on the Ladies European Tour. A title that, unfortunately, she has not been able to defend, having withdrawn just hours before the tournament began.
