BELMONT, Mich. - Mother Nature served up a stern test on Thursday morning of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give, waking players with chilly temperatures compounded by windy conditions. But once Benedetta Moresco saw the weather she’d be facing in round one, she huddled with her caddie, Ivan Galdame, ahead of her 9:16 a.m. tee time and the pair came up with a game plan for how to attack Blythefield Country Club. The strategy paid off as the team played their way up the leaderboard on Thursday morning with a four-under par round of 68.

“Today, our game plan was to play smart because with this wind the scores can be very tricky,” Moresco said after her opening round. “We made good decisions out there. We played really good shots and he picked good clubs, so I have to give him a lot of credit.”

That plan meant Moresco would be hitting low punch shots off the fairways into greens to try and keep the ball down under the wind, which is a strength of her game that she was able to lean on as she missed just three greens on Thursday. Moresco said the plan also meant trying to maintain a good speed with her putter, which proved to be a challenge on day one as the Italian needed 30 putts, but said she was happy after her round with her short game.

“I made some good putts as well,” Moresco said about her day. “That helped, too.”

Moresco sought to reset her season after missing the cut in four of her first seven starts of the year and took some time away from the Tour to work with her team, which contributed to a tie for 33rd last week at the Dow Championship alongside teammate Carolina Melgrati and resulted in Moresco’s first top 50 finish of the season.

“I feel like it's going the right direction. The first part of the season wasn't the best, but now I feel very good,” Moresco said about the work she’s put in on her game. “I took a couple extra weeks off and I worked on my game a lot with my coach. So I feel in a good place and I feel very happy on the course now. I think it's going well.”

Thursday’s round is a bright spot in what has otherwise been a challenging year for the third year member who is continuing to find her footing on the LPGA Tour following success in the amateur ranks in which she earned low amateur honors at the U.S. Women’s Open in 2023 and was tied for fourth at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2022.

“I feel like playing with such good players every week you learn a lot, and you learn a lot also about yourself,” Moresco said about her transition to the professional ranks. “So even though some weeks don't go as well you can still learn and grow and put all the effort into the week after.”

Given her success on day one, Moresco is confident she’ll be sticking to the same strategy she put into practice on Thursday with her caddie. That is, of course, unless the set course set-up and conditions shift dramatically the next three days. In that case, it’ll be time for Moresco to huddle once more with her caddie and come up with a new plan.

“If they move some tees and the wind changes definitely have to change the strategy sometimes,” Moresco said about her plans for the week. “But I would say today worked really well so more or less I will keep it the same.”

Moresco Finds Success with Plan to Tackle Mother Nature

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