Barber\u2019s score was matched by 15-year-old Tang from Auckland, who only found out five days ago that she, like Barber, was a late invite to the WAAP after a last-minute player withdrawal.<\/p>\n
The pair shared a tie for 26th place at the end of the opening day, one shot back from top-ranked Kiwi amateur Eunseo Choi (T17) at one-under and eight shots back from Korean leader Yunseo Yang.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really great having a home crowd supporting me and standing on the tree lines,\u201d Barber beamed after her round.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust every shot I had \u2013 it was claps here and there, and it felt like I was really supported by them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to get tee to green pretty good and able to make a few putts and two putt as well on the fast greens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barber, who had the strongest galleries of all the groups on day one, said she was enjoying the wave of local support following her inclusion in the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad that they\u2019ve read about it and they\u2019re out here to support me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy teachers are supporting me \u2013 they were always like, \u2018good luck, go well\u2019. My friends are definitely cheering me on, texting me like \u2018oh, my gosh, how did you go?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all really great support and I\u2019m glad to have them by my side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis afternoon, I\u2019m definitely going to relax and get the rest of my nerves out and prepare for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hong Kong, China\u2019s Arianna Lau sits second on seven-under, one shot behind Yang and two shots clear of Korea\u2019s Seojin Park in third alone at five-under.<\/p>\n
Philippines star Rianne Malixi is tied for fourth at four-under after setting the day alight with a chip-in eagle three at the par-5 10th.<\/p>\n
Choi is the best of the Kiwis at one-under thanks to a late surge with birdies at the par-4 17th and par-5 18th.<\/p>\n
The experienced Vivian Lu, playing in a record sixth WAAP, is the next best home player behind Barber and Tang at one-over and a tie for 33rd, with fellow Kiwis Emma Zheng, Chloe So and Caitlin Maurice tied for 47th at three-over.<\/p>\n
The top-50 players and ties will make the cut for the weekend following tomorrow\u2019s second round.<\/p>\n
Coverage of the WAAP is live in New Zealand on Sky Sport from 1pm to 4pm NZT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barber\u2019s score was matched by 15-year-old Tang from Auckland, who only found out five days ago that she,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[157408,7125,71154,1975,156365,32294,90820,40671,1871,156364,2550,1345,194,685,7240,13620,111,139,69,10521,18833,9855,213,157407,5163,10706,8229,156363,686,52,23965,157406,2834,41402],"class_list":{"0":"post-281339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-11strong","9":"tag-amateur","10":"tag-asiapacific","11":"tag-at","12":"tag-barber","13":"tag-charge","14":"tag-contingent","15":"tag-draw","16":"tag-duo","17":"tag-elise","18":"tag-even","19":"tag-home","20":"tag-kiwi","21":"tag-last","22":"tag-lead","23":"tag-leading","24":"tag-new-zealand","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-opening","28":"tag-round","29":"tag-royal","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-tang","32":"tag-teen","33":"tag-teenage","34":"tag-they","35":"tag-waap","36":"tag-week","37":"tag-wellington","38":"tag-werent","39":"tag-wildcards","40":"tag-womens","41":"tag-yesterdays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}