PRATTVILLE, Alabama – Scotland’s Janice Moodie shot a bogey-free 8-under 64 on Thursday to take a one-stroke lead over 14-year-old Alexis Thompson in the Navistar Classic, with Michelle Wie and top-ranked Lorena Ochoa two strokes back.
Moodie, a two-time winner on the LPGA Tour, played her final nine holes – the front nine on The Senator course at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail’s Capitol Hill complex, in 6-under 30. She birdied her final four holes and six of her last seven.
Jennifer Rosales missed a top 10 start with a bogey-bogey windup, settling for a three-under par 69 for joint 25th.
Rosales, who wound up joint 46th in the last LPGA tournament, made three birdies against a bogey after nine holes then threatened to join the leaders by coming up with a three-birdie string from No. 14 to go five-under.
But the ace Filipina shotmaker, a two-time LPGA winner, stumbled with a bogey on the par-5 17th and failed to check her skid with another bogey-mishap on the 18th for a 34-35 card.
She dropped to 25th place with 15 others, four strokes behind Moodie at the start of the four-day championship offering a total purse of $1.3 million.
“All of a sudden I’m hitting driver, wedge, wedge, wedge,” Moodie said. “I thought, you know, I better capitalize on this one, and I did think I was more thinking about how the golf course has dried out compared to making the birdies.”
Thompson had eight birdies and a bogey.
“Everything was working for me,” said Thompson, Florida schoolgirl. “My ball striking was good. My driver was a little off, but I’m not going to complain. I rolled my putter really good.”
The sister of PGA Tour player Nicholas Thompson, she won the 2008 US Girls’ Junior and tied for 34th in July in the US Women’s Open. (AP)