Friday, conditions in Rogers, Arkansas were ideal for scoring and players came out firing.
Aditi Ashok of India started the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship with back-to-back birdies and went onto make consecutive birdies on three separate occasions on her way to an opening round 7-under, 64. Friday, Ashok snagged a share of the midday lead with Mirim Lee of Korea, Lizette Salas of the United States and Moriya Jutanugarn of Thailand.
Sandra Changkija is one back at 6-under.
“I just like this golf course a lot,” said Ashok. “I was comfortable from the start. I started with two birdies and then I kept hitting good iron shots to the green, so I had a lot of birdie chances.”
Ashok made birdie on her last to tie the lowest round of her career.
The 20-year-old was sharp off the tee and will her ball striking. She hit every fairway and missed only one green.
There was one other time Ashok posted a round of 7-under par on Tour, also at Pinnacle Country Club, in the second round of the 2017 tournament.
Ashok has shown moments of brilliance this year like her T6 at the Volunteers of America LPGA Texas Classic and a T7 the week prior, but is still in search of her first win on Tour.
Mirim Lee, who started her day on the back nine, reeled off four straight birdies as she made the turn to ignite her round of 64. Like Ashok, she was also bogey-free.
"I'm still trying to look for just that right feeling for the shots," said Lee, who hit 16 of 18 fairways on Thursday. "I haven't been hitting a ton of fairways with the driver, which makes the second shot a lot harder to make."
Lee, a three-time winner, has had a rough go this year. She has either missed the cut or withdrawn from five consecutive tournaments.
Salas made four birdies on each side and just a single bogey for her round of 64.
"I've been striking the ball well and my putting's been coming along, so I felt good coming in and it definitely showed," explained Salas. "Confidence is everything for me. I've been working hard the last couple weeks and it's definitely showing and it's good timing for next week's event. But I want to finish strong here and hopefully have a good performance."
The 28-year-old has had a strong 2018 season with seven top 25 results, but she's craving her first win since the 2014 Kingsmill Championship. Salas is also still in the race for the final spot on Team USA for the UL International Crown. She ranks No. 26 in the world and needs to catch Michelle Wie, who ranks No. 16, over the next two weeks.
Major champions Stacy Lewis, Shanshan Feng, Pernilla Lindberg and Lydia Ko are 5-under through 18. Ko had one of the highlights of the day when she holed out for eagle from 105 yards out on hole nine.
"It's not a green that you can kind of see the green, so I didn't really know what was going to happen and how it went in, but, you know, I could see, well, I could hear that the spectators were getting louder and louder and then you could kind of sense the roar. I don't think I've had a hole-out eagle this year, so really cool."
Lewis, the local favorite, is in pursuit of a second win in Arkansas. She also finished in a tie for fourth last year. Lewis was a four-time All-American at Arkansas and won the individual national title in 2007. Lewis said on Tuesday that she is playing in three more events and will take off the remainder of the year as she awaits the birth of her first child in November.
"It felt good," said Lewis. "There were definitely some I left out there, but it was one of those days I was hitting it so good that you have a lot of chances. So just had to keep trying to stay patient knowing that putts were going to go in, and all in all it was a pretty good day."
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