Bo-Mee Lee Leads Hee Kyung Seo and So Yeon Ryu at Australian Ladies Masters

Bo-Mee Lee, the 2010 KLPGA Player of the Year who was 40th on the 2011 JLPGA money list in only 14 starts on her new tour, showed that she's ready to go in 2012 as she turned in a bogey-free 65 in the 1st round of the LET/ALPGA co-sponsored Gold Coast RACV Australian Ladies Masters.  That gave her a 1-shot lead on fellow South Korean phenoms Hee Kyung Seo and So Yeon Ryu, along with Christel Boeljon, who was an LET standout before her solid debut on the LPGA last season.  Speaking of phenoms, Lexi Thompson picked up where she left off at the end of 2011, firing a 67 that outdid playing partner 14-year-old Lydia Ko, who won last week on the ALPG, by 3 shots.

Plenty of big names are right in the hunt, including Sophie Gustafson, Christina Kim, Gwladys Nocera, Lee-Anne Pace, Wendy Doolan, and Pernilla Lindberg at 69, Stacy Lewis, Katherine Hull, Lorie Kane, Jennifer Song, and Danielle Kang at 70, Laura Davies, Candie Kung, Kyeong Bae, Amanda Blumenherst, Mariajo Uribe, Maria Hernandez, and Victoria Tanco at 71, and Ha-Neul Kim, Melissa Reid, Caroline Hedwall, Becky Morgan, Tiffany Joh, Marianne Skarpnord, and Ashleigh Simon at 72.  The ALPG leaderboard, which I link to above, is much more comprehensive than the LET story, but both are worth checking out, as is Jamie's 1st post in a long time at his golf/tennis blog. With Belen Mozo failing to break 80 and Hee Young Park not able to break 75, there were also plenty of middling and high scores from players who will be scrambling all year to keep their LPGA cards for 2013.  Let's see who can get their 2012 season off on the right foot this coming weekend!