France’s Celine Boutier leads the women’s golf competition at the Paris Olympics as she took a three-shot lead after the first round.
Boutier, who has the experience of playing several times at Le Golf National, carded seven under as she was cheered on by the home crowd.
South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai is in second, with the United States’ Lilia Vu and Colombia’s Mariajo Uribe part of a four-way tie for third at two under.
Britain’s Georgia Hall is down the leaderboard on tied 30th at two over, nine behind runaway leader Boutier.
Her compatriot Charley Hull endured a nightmare nine-over opening round of 81 and is 58th of the 60 competitors.
“I’m really over the moon with the way the tournament started for me,” said Boutier, who won her first LPGA major last year at the Evian Championship in France.
“It’s definitely not something I’m really used to from what I usually experience on the LPGA, so it’s nice to have that much support.
“Coming last weekend, being able to watch some of the men’s round and their tee shots helped me out just because I was able to see the support and the crowd that they got and was able to help prepare myself for today and for the rest of the week.”
Celine Boutier raced into an early lead as the women’s golf competition
World No 1 and defending Olympic champion Nella Korda had to push hard to get back to even for the day at 72. She had a trio of three-putts early and was three over through eight holes until she sorted out the green speed and made a few putts.
Korda, who has slowed since her record-tying run of five straight LPGA wins this year, took three putts from fringe on No. 1 for bogey.
She three-putted from long range for par on the third and had another three-putt bogey at the seventh. She reached the par-five 18th in two, only to three-putt for par from 65 feet.
“I actually didn’t hit it that bad. I just made four three-putts,” Korda said. “The greens were just so completely different – from the practice green to the golf course, they were a lot slower. So it was just a pace thing.”
