Steph Kyriacou lived up to her pre-tournament tag as one of the favourites as the Sydneysider tries to prevent a men\u2019s clean sweep of the Webex Players Series events on the Australasian tour.<\/p>\n
On a day of high drama with Brady Watt and Caitlin Peirce both signing for holes-in-one, a steady Kyriacou made the most of a rare tournament at home to be in contention after the opening round at Castle Hill Country Club.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old and LPGA Tour regular is one of Australia\u2019s most decorated female stars and took little time to find her groove in the first tournament of her year with a five-under 67 on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Kyriacou drove the green to set up eagle on the par-four 16th hole and only had one bogey as she trailed Watt and Declan O\u2019Donovan by a shot following their 66s.<\/p>\n
Asked about the eagle, Kyriacou said: \u201cI hit it to about 10 feet, so that was pretty good.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually didn\u2019t see it. My eyesight\u2019s not very good, which is kind of sad cause I\u2019m only 25. But I just kind of hit it and it was right at the flag, so I just kind of walked away. I got up there, it was 10 foot and just holed the putt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyriacou has kept her expectations in check this week as she prepares for the two big Australian events on the WPGA calendar, but she will have more than a few people hoping she can clinch the trophy if she\u2019s alive down the stretch on Sunday.<\/p>\n
All four Webex Players Series events this season \u2013 in which men and women compete against each other but play from different tees \u2013 have been won by men. In Kyriacou, the women potentially have their best chance.<\/p>\n
Watt (-6) made a stunning start at Castle Hill after making an ace on the long par-three 17th \u2013 not that he saw it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just kind of hit it exactly how I wanted, and then just put the club in the bag and walked off, which is unbelievable because you kind of think you should watch it go in,\u201d he said. \u201cI got the laser out, saw the pitch mark and actually thought it was long, but it was in.<\/p>\n
\u201c(A hole-in-one) was in my head I was thinking, \u2018oh, I haven\u2019t had one in a little while\u2019, so that was good. It\u2019s always nice to have one. I think it\u2019s my fifth now.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Watt may have missed watching his big moment, there was no stopping Peirce, whose flawless eight-iron skipped into the cup on the second hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just looked all over it the whole way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Afternoon temperatures soared in Sydney\u2019s north west as O\u2019Donovan made the most of being out in the first group of the morning to be bogey free at six-under.<\/p>\n
Local Daniel Gale joined Kyriacou at five-under with former NRL champion Ryan Papenhuyzen on his bag while South Korea\u2019s Sanghee Lee also carded a 67.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steph Kyriacou lived up to her pre-tournament tag as one of the favourites as the Sydneysider tries to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[33224,236435,1724,64,63,689,112908,236442,236438,19757,236440,9239,236441,42889,755,236437,677,236436,236443,236439,49985,5813,85,34402],"class_list":["post-459860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-adam-pengilly","tag-afternoon-temperatures","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-events","tag-caitlin-peirce","tag-clean-sweep","tag-country-club","tag-decorated-female-stars","tag-eastern-asia","tag-event-atcastle","tag-gender-equality","tag-golf","tag-hill-country","tag-oceania","tag-players-series","tag-players-series-event","tag-pre-tournament-tag","tag-ryan-papenhuyzen","tag-south-korea","tag-sports","tag-steph-kyriacou"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}