Chiara Tamburlini is well in the mix through 18 holes at the U.S. Women’s Open after the Swiss star opened with a 69 (-3) at Erin Hills to sit one shot adrift of the leaders.
Competing in her first ever U.S. Women’s Open, Tamburlini got off to a hot start in Wisconsin birdying three of her opening five holes to soar into the top-10.
The 25-year-old would drop her only shot of the day at the par-4 15th, but she rebounded well after the turn birdying the par-5 1st before parring her remaining holes to match the second best score of the day.
“Honestly I think it was pretty solid through the board,” Tamburlini said. “I think that’s what you need to play well on a course like this. I think you need a pretty all-around game, good tee shots. I think I only missed one fairway. [I hit] a lot of good approaches. Hit a couple good putts. Yeah, everything was solid.”
This week marks Tamburlini’s second Major in the US after she tee’d up at last month’s Chevron Championship where she missed the cut. The Swiss star qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open thanks to a magnificent 2024 – a year which saw her win three times en route to claiming the Ladies European Tour (LET) Order of Merit and Rookie of the Year double.
On the experience, Tamburlini said: “I mean, it was pretty cool. Having Zach [Byrd] on the bag [for the first time] definitely calmed my nerves a little bit. I was quite confident from the first tee. Like I was a little nervous at first, but we had a good group too, so I just enjoyed every single little bit of it really.
“I didn’t really do anything different in my prep. Of course it was couple more shots around the green that I wanted to hit ahead of time just because there so many huge run-offs. It was pretty much what I somewhat expected. Like high rough. The fairways are a bit wider that I had expected, so that’s quite nice. Yeah, no, I feel like I did some good prep.”
Tamburlini sits T7 after the opening round 69 (-3) with A Lim Kim, Jin Hee Im, Rio Takeda, Yealimi Noh and Julia Lopez Ramirez leading the way on four-under par. Sweden’s Maja Stark is two shots back on two-under par.
