Minjee Lee leads in Scotland with play halted

IRVINE, Scotland — Two-time major champion Minjee Lee of Australia managed a strong wind and caught a break with rare sunshine in a wet Scottish summer with a 5-under 67 on Thursday for a one-shot lead in the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open before play was stopped for the day.

Lydia Ko, coming off her Olympic gold medal, faced the worst of the weather at Dundonald Links and made five birdies in her round of 69.

Former U.S. Women’s Open champion A Lim Kim and American Megan Khang were at 68.

The opening round was suspended by bad weather and a water-logged course. Lily May Humphreys of England was at 4 under with six holes to play. Play was halted at the start for about an hour because of rain, and there was another weather delay of 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Lee is coming off a disappointing Olympics during which she was never in the hunt and wound up finishing in a tie for 22nd. She played bogey-free on a tough course, picking up birdies on both par 5s on the back nine.

“Always a happy girl after a bogey-free round,” Lee said. “I feel like I played smart golf, I’d say. I gave myself a lot of opportunities for birdie. I feel like when I was in trouble, I kind of missed it in the right spots and could get up-and-down, so that was good.”

Lee figured she caught a break not having to deal with the brunt of the rain, although there was no escaping the fierce wind.

Ko got the worst of both, describing the weather as so chaotic that she was too busy dealing with it to get overly stressed.

“If it’s just windy, it’s fine. But it was windy and rain,” Ko said. “It’s hard when you have to hold the umbrella sideways and not up. I’m pretty sure it was built for you to hold it like vertically. So it’s just very difficult out there.”

Ko managed a 69 despite making only one birdie on the par 5s. With the wind direction, both par 5s on the front were reachable. Still, she had no complaints given the weather.

“That’s just part of the experience of coming over. If you don’t like it, you’re probably not going to play that good, anyway,” Ko said. “So it’s just more about grinding it out and know that sometimes you’re not going to be on the fairer side of the draw. But that’s also part of playing tournaments over in this part of the world.”

Charley Hull of England was contending for the lead until a bogey on the par-5 14th slowed her momentum. She wound up in the group at 70 that included Esther Henseleit of Germany, who captured the silver medal at the Paris Games.

The tournament is the final stop before the Women’s British Open next week at St. Andrews.