P.K. Kongkraphan, 4-time TLPGA Tour titlist in 2024, continued her tremendous play from her winning run at the SAMPO Ladies Open champion and carried it into the new week with a 7-under 65 on Wednesday, which gave her a two-shot lead after the first-round of the 2024 Party Golfers Ladies Open.

Taiwan’s own Tseng Tsai-Ching (曾彩晴) reached her highest standing on the tournament leaderboard in the 2024 season by shooting a 67 and sitting in equal second with Thai Nook Sukapan.

The TLPGA Tour makes its return to Hsinchu at the Lily Golf Club as the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour (LPGT) co-sanctioned Party Golfers Ladies Open gets underway.

The 2024 Party Golfers Ladies Open has been the sixteenth TLPGA Tour and LPGT co-sanctioned tournament since the two tours first collaborated in 2015. Prize money of the 54-hole event has been increased to NT$5 million from NT$4 million with China Airlines joining forces new edition. The winner emerging from the competitive 101-player field on Friday will pocket NT$900,000.

“The Lily course has very slopey, tight fairways. Sometimes you get on the tee and you have no idea where to put the ball,” said Kongkraphan. “I’m really happy I stood up to the challenge. I was hitting solid, with great distance control, and I’ve been driving so well lately. It was a great opening day for me.”

Kongkraphan racked up seven birdies, offset by just one bogey. “The greens actually play similar to those at my home club, so I felt pretty comfortable playing here,” she added. “Hopefully my iron game could be better in the next round, so that I won’t have as many long putts as I had to deal with today.”

Tseng Tsai-Ching only committed one bogey on the 16th hole where she “tried to do too much” hitting off a side slope. Putting that aside, she was delivering a high-level attacking game which rewarded her with six birdies. “I was feeling smooth, especially on the greens. So I tried to be aggressive and make as many birdie as I could,” Tseng said.

Sukapan saved her dull front nine with an eagle on the 7th, and finally mounted a late charge of three birdies in the last five holes to squeeze into the leader’s group. “The tee shot rolled into the rough. It was not looking good at all. I took out my 4-iron and went from 191 yards, and it was just perfectly straight and gave me a wonderful eagle chance, which I did not wasted,” said the big-hitting Thai player, who was bogey-free in today’s first round. “There was a lot of up and down on the Lily course. But even with how tough it plays, I enjoy walking on this beautiful, lush course. It feels very calming, and I felt I was playing better and better as the day went on. I hope I would be able to keep up the good work tomorrow.”

Defending champion Chen Ling-Jie (陳伶潔) also found three birdies on the last five holes to move into a four-way tie for fourth on 4-under 68.

Mikhaela Fortuna is the highest standing Filipina in a crowded seven-way tie for eighth on 3-under 69. 19 players from the LGPT traveled to Taiwan this week to try rewriting their previous best finish of a T4 by Daniella Uy in the 2019 event.

The competition layout is set at 6,217 yards long and plays to a par score of 72. A cut will be made tomorrow after the second round to only the top-50 and ties.

The Party Golfers, an amateur golf team comprised of local entrepreneurs who share a never-fading passion for the golf sport, has been lending their sponsorship supports to the TLPGA since 2014, when the first Party Golfers Open was staged, giving the TLPGA Tour that final push into the WWGR (World Women’s Golf Rankings) system.

For the fourth year in a row, the backdrop for the event will be the Lily Golf & Country Club. By introducing solar panels in its parking lot and a functional rain recycling system to recapture water and energy as maintenance resources for its facilities, Lily Golf Club takes pride in contributing to ESG initiatives to preserve the golf environments.