Chang Yi-Han (張怡涵) and Lee Hsin (李欣) fired matching first-round 67s to sit atop the leaderboard at the inaugural Taya Group Ladies Open.

The NT$6-million event got underway today at the Chianan Golf & Country Club. Winner on Friday will take away NT$1,080,000.

Chang is turning 24 in just two days, and she would surely be hoping to take the crown as her birthday present on Friday. The best finish to date for the TLPGA sophomore was a T6 at the YI-CHEN Heritage Tour this year, where she was also in the top-3 after the first-round.

“I did not start too well. I took the birdie opportunity on the first par-5 on the second hole, but then I gave it right back on the fourth with a bogey, and my tee shot found the water on the fifth, where I committed a double-bogey. It was kind of a wake-up call,” Chang said, who regrouped and upped her game significantly after, draining four birdie putts in a row to make the turn at 2-under.

On the back-nine, Chang was cruising with confidence and consistency as she added another birdie and a final-hole eagle to the tally, without any more blemish on the card, to finish the day at 5-under and pleasantly find herself tied for the clubhouse lead with Lee Hsin.

Lee Hsin remained highly steady throughout the first-round, scoring three birdies on each half, with her outward gains on no.3, 4, 9 and inward on no.12, 15, and 16. She landed 11 fairways out of 14.

“I was hitting the target, so I felt pretty comfortable out there,” Lee Hsin said. “The par-3s were played quite long today, and with the slopey greens at Chianan, you could drop a few shots without some great hitting from the tee, so I was being extra careful on the par-3s. But I felt the par-4 and -5s were rather short. I was really trying to aim at the right place on the fairway and take the attacking opportunities. I think I did well.”

Lee Min (李旻) made her return to the TLPGA Tour after finishing the WPG Ladies Open in T8 in May. “I played a couple of events in the U.S. and kind of had to flew back and forth between home and there. I was physically drained, and found a bit of problems in my hip joint. It took some work with my therapist to bring me back into form. And fortunately, I felt great today despite the rust,” said Lee Min, who only missed one fairway to finish in a tie for third on 4-under 68. She shot five birdies in the first round, offset but just one bogey.

Tying with Lee Min was Chen Hsuan (陳萱), who also carded five birdies to one bogey. “I had a lucky turnaround with that chip-in eagle on the 15th, I have to say,” Chen recalled, who started on the 10th tee and went 3-over already after three holes, before she mounted a surprise recovery with a stretch of birdie-birdie-eagle on 13 to 15. “It helped me settle the nerves and I was just playing better and better.” Chen never committed another real mistake on the rest of the round and rose into the top-3 after three more birdies on her back nine.

Luckiest player today must be Lee Tai-Ling (李黛翎) who grabbed a set of bonus hole-in-one prizes thanks to her achievement on the 14th hole, where she took out her 6-iron on the tee to hole it straight out from 163 yards. This helped to bring Lee Tai-Ling briefly on the top of the leaderboard on 4-under at the turn (she began on the back nine). Lee Tai Ling snatched another birdie on her 11th hole to reach 5-under; however, on the closing stage saw her make four birdies in six holes as she fell into a crowed eight-way tie for tenth on 1-under 71.

Recent Party Golfers’ Ladies Open winner Chen Ling-Jie (陳伶潔), and Thai Ace P.K. Kongkraphan, who is already a 4-time TLPGA Tour titlist this season, both sit in a tie for 29th after first-round 73s.

The TLPGA Tour heads to a new pitstop this week at the Chianan Golf & Country Club as the inaugural Taya Group Ladies Open tees off on Wednesday. Taya is one of the leading energy connection solution providers in Asia, specializing in the energy generation, conversion, transmission, storage, and management fields. The brand is celebrating its 70th year anniversary next year.

Taya Group decided to support the women’s event advocating for gender equality in the sport, anchored by its long-term commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Taya’s Pristine Homeland Foundation has been dedicated to working collaboratively across the energy community to drive improvement in power safety, green energy, and environmental sustainability in the country.