| -10 C Noja (Ger); -8 A Buhai (SA); -6 J Gustavsson (Swe), N Nadaud (Fra), R Meekers (Ned); -5 LM Humphreys (Eng) |
| Selected others: -4 K Henry (Sco); -3 E Givens (Eng) G Cowley (Eng) J Turner (Sco); -2 C Williams (Wal), T Martin (Eng), L Beveridge (Sco), H Davis (Eng); -1 B Brewerton (Wal), L Young (Eng) |
| Full leaderboard |
German 16-year-old Chiara Noja leads the South African Women’s Open after breaking the course record with her opening round of 62.
The teenager is 10 under, two shots clear of South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai at Steenberg Golf Club in Cape Town.
Noja’s record first round included nine birdies, an eagle and just one bogey.
“I think it was pretty consistent golf in general,” said Noja, who won her first Ladies European Tour title in Saudi Arabia in November.
She added: “Over the winter I’ve done a lot of wedge work and a lot of the shots that I’ve learned to hit over this week and the start of the season I didn’t have in the bag last year.”
Noja, born in Berlin in 2006 before emigrating to England at the age of seven, turned professional aged 15, and was 16 years and 241 days old when she won at the Aramco Team Series in Jeddah last year.
Women’s Open champion Buhai is second on eight under after carding seven birdies in her first nine holes, while Sweden’s Johanna Gustavsson, France’s Nastasia Nadaud and the Netherlands’ Romy Meekers are a further two shots behind on six-under.
England’s Lily May Humphreys, who won the Joburg Ladies Open last week, is sixth after a five-under 67, with Scotland’s Kylie Henry in a group one stroke further back.
