Meghan MacLaren continued her good recent form Down Under producing an opening round of 66 (-5) at the Australian WPGA Championship.
The three-time LET winner has made the cut in all three Ladies European Tour (LET) events in Australia with a best finish of T2 at the Australian Women’s Classic.
In the first round at Sanctuary Cove Golf and Country Club, MacLaren fired a flawless 66 rolling in birdies on the fourth, ninth, 11th, 13th and 14th holes to sit in a share of fourth place after 18 holes.
“It was solid,” said MacLaren. “It wasn’t perfect or me at my best I don’t think, but again that’s what is really encouraging for me. I did a lot of good stuff obviously, but I feel I could tighten my irons up a little bit.
“The things I’m good at showed today, so even if I was a bit off my distance control was good enough, I was putting a lot of the time and rolled a few in and drove it well. I made a really good par on 17 which at the time kept a bit of momentum going. It was the only time I was really out of position; I holed a nice putt there.
“It is scoreable. I expected that scoring would be good today and all week. It’s quite an extreme difference to last week, which you have to get into that mindset of you need to be more aggressive. I got off to a good start today, you know you have to keep going. You can’t necessarily just be satisfied. It’s in fantastic condition and I enjoyed it.”
MacLaren, who has won all three of her LET titles in Australia, is playing her fourth week in a row.
The 31-year-old admitted she got up early to watch her beloved Newcastle United but has been managing her energy levels ahead of the final tournament in the LET’s Aussie swing.
She explained: “I maybe shouldn’t have got up this morning to watch Newcastle lose 7-2 to Barcelona at 3.30 in the morning! We’re all feeling it a little bit, but this is what I want to be doing.
“It’s just a case of managing things and trying to do the things you need to without over-practicing. I’m lucky because I feel like my game is in a good place this week. It’s trying to finetune it and not do too much.
“I found last week difficult because I had such a good week the previous week that it took a lot out of me mentally and physically. I never quite felt like I practiced the things I wanted to in time because it was such a demanding golf course.
“This week, the golf course is a little bit easier to prepare for and I played really nicely towards the end of last week – even though I didn’t get a lot out of it. It was nice to come here and not feel like I needed to do a huge amount. I tidied my driving up and did a bit of work on the greens.”
The Australian WPGA Championship continues tomorrow at 6:15am. You can follow along with the tournament on our socials – @LETgolf on Instagram and X and Ladies European Tour on Facebook and YouTube – #AusWPGA.
