North Las Vegas, Nevada — Defending champion Nelly Corda is the 828 No. 828 worldwide and became the latest example of T-Mobile Match Play when she settled down half Wednesday with Brittany Altomere, who built her game after an 18-month break after giving birth.
Korda played for Shadow Creek, two holes, when Altmaa won 15th on par and 16th on birdies. She made a 4-foot bogey putt on the 18th hole, halving the match after Coda was short on par putts from the fringe.
“It’s a game play, so anything can happen,” said Altomare, who was on the Epson Tour for the 2024 tournament. “It was a victory for me to finish with a tie. Nelly is a great player.”
The format has returned to round robin play among 16 groups of four players, so Korda still has a path to the weekend knockout stage.
Heo Joo Kim, who won a playoff victory at Phoenix last week, did Bailey Taidy’s short work with 8 and 7 wins. Brooke Henderson spent six and five hours over Leona Maguire in Ireland.
However, this was a typical wild day for this annual format.
Albane Valenzuela squared the match back with 16 holes on five downs on the turn to Megan Khang. Khang had to go up and down from behind 17 green to keep up and down.
Khang was still playing his third shot on the fairway and was completely judged from the backstop. Valenzuela went from the bunker behind the green and faced a 60-foot putt with a steep ridge halfway through the hole.
Her putt was an inch from catching the ridge. Her par putt had no chance, deploying 12 feet and she missed a bogey putt and admitted the match. Kan never had to putt.
“I’m happy to have won, but in a stressful way,” Kang said.
Jenny Singh had a tough loss, not because she had a 3-up lead. She was one year old until Lim Kim won 17th place in birdie. In the final hole, Singh had a sharp broken putt from about 20 feet to allow Birdie to win the match. She ran in that five feet and missed a par putt to lose.
British Charlie Hull was all square with Alexapano until he scored five straight holes on the back nine in his 5 and 3 wins. Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul, the number two player in the world rankings of women, has won six and five wins over Daniel Kang, who lives in Las Vegas and has been exempt from sponsors.
Kang fell to number 375 in the world.
Four of the top eight seeds lost an opening match, including third seed Lydiaco, 6 and 4, to Hira Naveed, who was first replaced two days ago.
“I played Lydia as my first girl, so I knew I had a task on hand,” Naveed said. “I just got out there, played fearless golf, hit great shots and made putts, so that was good.”
Others were Heeran Liu, Inn’s Running, and Jin Youngco.