Fascinating Leaderboard at the Volvik RACV Ladies Masters

Jessica Korda and Katie Burnett lead the Volvik RACV Ladies Masters after firing 5-under-par 68s.  They lead Lorie Kane, Lee-Anne Pace, Valentine Derrey, Stacy Lee Bregman, and Cheyenne Woods by 1 shot and Line Vedel, Dewi Claire Schreefel, Sarah Kemp, Kristie Smith, Rebecca Artis, Yu Yang Zhang, and Minjee Lee by 2.  As Ruthless Mike points out, a lot's changed since I noted that Caroline Hedwall had jumped out to an early lead.  In fact, just after I posted, she doubled the par-5 3rd and Korda birdied it, a 3-shot swing that didn't change over the rest of the front (their back).  The day was full of such swings, but I don't have time to go into details this morning.

Instead, I'll simply list the scores of notables after day 1:

• -2 Gwladys Nocera, Melissa Reid, Tiffany Joh, Katherine Kirk
• -1 Chella Choi, Char Young Kim, Stacey Keating
• E Laura Davies, Sophie Gustafson, Maria Hjorth, Ya Ni Tseng, Mi Hyang Lee, Lindsey Wright, Belen Mozo, Charley Hull, Su-Hyun Oh
• +1 Karrie Webb, Joanna Klatten, Ashleigh Simon, Kyu-Jung Baek
• +2 Christine Song, Xi Yu Lin
• +3 Becky Brewerton, Carly Booth
• +4 Giulia Sergas, Vicky Hurst, Giulia Molinaro
• +5 Nikki Campbell, Brooke Pancake
• +6 Minea Blomqvist

Sorry, I can't go into explanations of why I find all this so fascinating, but I'm heading out to work and either teaching or in meetings without a gap until 5!

[Update 1 (8:25 pm):  OK, back from work and have a free minute to say a few things about the leaderboard when I posted this--and now.  So why "fascinating"?  Well, among the players you'd expect near the top of the leaderboard (Korda, Pace, Nocera, Hedwall), you have a pair of wily LET veterans and a pair of rising stars (both of whom play go-for-broke golf).  And who would have thought that Lorie Kane or Cheyenne Woods would be at the top of the leaderboard?  Plus, it's nice to see folks who have been struggling like Melissa Reid, Tiffany Joh, and Katherine Kirk shoot good rounds early, yet it's surprising to see the group at +1 that far back, as the ones I noted above have all been playing well of late.

In that vein, isn't it cool that Woods is now leading the tournament?  She's -5 through 14 in the 2nd round and 2-up on Trish Johnson and Stacy Lee Bregman!]