Three closing birdies put Pauline Roussin-Bouchard atop the Maybank Classic leaderboard

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Pauline Roussin-Bouchard birdied her final three holes Thursday at the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club for an 8-under 64 and a one-stroke lead after the first round of the LPGA Tour's Maybank Classic.

French player Roussin-Bouchard, whose rookie season on the tour was 2022, is still looking for her first LPGA win and has three top-10 finishes.

American Sophia Schubert, who also joined the tour in 2022 and has no wins and three career top-10 finishes, was tied for second place after a 65 with Miyu Yamashita, who won last year’s Malaysian tournament after a three-way playoff.

Another French player, Perrine Delacour, shot 66 and was tied for fourth with Charley Hull, who birdied two of her final three holes.

Haeran Ryu, a major winner this year at the Women’s PGA Championship and at the Evian Championship, withdrew before her first-round tee time for an undisclosed reason. She was the highest-ranked player in the tournament in the absence of No. 1 Nelly Korda and No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul.

Last week, Yuri Yoshida won the BMW Ladies Championship in South Korea, the fourth Japanese player this season to win on the LPGA Tour, joining Yamashita, Shiho Kuwaki and Yuna Nishimura. Yoshida had a 69 Thursday.

Among the hazards at the Kuala Lumpur layout was the sight, captured on the television coverage, of a 3-meter (10-foot) monitor lizard eating a smaller animal near one of the lakes on the course.

The LPGA's four-week, late-season Asian swing ends next week with the Toto Japan Classic at Omitama outside Tokyo.

___

See AP’s full golf coverage here