Two Tied for Early 2025 Chevron Championship Lead

After a busy first day of the Chevron Championship from The Woodlands, there's plenty to discuss. Let's get right into it.

Haeran Ryu and Yan Liu each shot 65 to jump to the front of the pack. Both relied on hot putters with Ryu needing only 24 putts to get around The Club at Carlton Woods. With the course being one of the longest players will see this year, I’m betting on Ryu’s chances of hanging around throughout the weekend. No disrespect to Liu, but Ryu ranks ninth in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green and has a game that’s well-suited for the course. Putting has been her weakness so far this year, where her strokes gained bottom out at 129th. The good news for Ryu is that she seems to be in a honeymoon stage with her new putter that she switched to just a week ago. Liu, on the other hand, isn’t known for her distance or accuracy off the tee. She’ll need the flatstick to stay hot all week if she’s going to keep pace in such a big ballpark.

An Unrecognizable World No. 1

Nelly Korda trails by twelve shots after a mess of a first round. The defending champion’s putter was a big question mark entering the week. Similar to Haeran Ryu, Korda made a switch at last week’s JM Eagle LA Championship. The move to a blade style didn’t pan out as she struggled on the greens with numerous three-putts. Thursday, it was more of the same as she racked up 33 putts. A frustrated Korda headed straight to the putting green after her round and was seen practicing with a mallet similar to the one that she used towards the end of last summer and to start this season. Her ball-striking was out of sorts as well, especially on the front nine, where she bogeyed four holes in a row. On-course reporter Paige Mackenzie put it best, saying, "With all due respect to the number one player in the world, I'm not sure who showed up on the first tee today." Korda will need to play like her ranking on Friday if she wants to see the weekend.

Streaming Issues

On Monday, the LPGA announced that ESPN+ would stream featured group coverage this week, allowing fans to watch full rounds of some of the tour's biggest names. Things were going smoothly until midday Thursday, when the feed cut out completely. Anyone trying to tune in was met with the dreaded “Technical Difficulties” screen for over an hour. The LPGA offers the ESPN+ stream for a select few events each year. The added coverage began last year as a two-year deal with ESPN and serves as a workaround for the tour’s lack of options with its inflexible and outdated media rights deal with NBC. Unfortunately, the first round technical issues made streaming coverage feel just as outdated. One bright note from the stream? Host Will Haskett and analyst Ali Whitaker provided a nice balance of insight and humor.

LPGA Policies Are Having a Moment

After storms blew through Houston on Wednesday, The Club at Carlton Woods was drenched and played even longer on Thursday than its almost 6,900 yards. Players looking for a bit of relief via preferred lies weren't so lucky and played their balls down throughout the first round. In her post-round interview, Angel Yin said, "a lot of people were surprised," and she "got some mudballs." Lift, clean, and place doesn't belong anywhere near a major. Kudos to the tour for not allowing relief.

Another one of the tour’s policies made waves earlier this week when Nelly Korda mentioned she didn't get much practice in during Tuesday's pro-am because of its updated practice policy. As outlined by Beth Ann Nichols, the policy of not taking extra shots during pro-ams has been in place for years, but it’s being enforced this year via fines for players breaking the rules. The goal of the policy is to speed up the pace of the pro-ams and keep players engaged in entertaining their playing partners. There’s a lot of logic to the policy, but I understand Korda’s angst when the rule is applied during the majors.

SHOT OF THE DAY

Yu Liu, No. 8, Third Shot – Liu one-hopped her approach into the hole on the par-5 eighth for an eagle en route to a 1-under 71 in the first round to sit T-24. The call was really lacking here, but the shot did make a pretty loud noise.

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