Stupples sets target

Women's British Open: Karen Stupples, desperate to do well in front of a small army of family and friends, delighted both herself and her supporters by taking the lead after the first round of the Women's British Open yesterday. A superb seven-under-par 65 gave the Kentish woman her best start in a major championship, one she described as "fantastic".

She said: "I was really tense, really nervous before going out because I did want to play well in front of my home crowd."

Seven birdies and no bogeys later she was waving to her followers, having achieved the second best round of her life.

The best remains the last round in a tournament in Tucson this year which provided her with her first win on the women's tour in America, simultaneously creating the best aggregate winning score on that tour, 22 under par.

Stupples leads by two shots from Jung Yeon Lee of Korea and by three from the Swede Annika Sorenstam, Scotland's Catriona Matthew and the American Natalie Gulbis.

This is only the second time Stupples has led after one round, the previous occasion being five years ago at a tour event in Springfield, Illinois.

"It was my first year on tour," she said, "and I scared myself to death. I completely topped the first two shots of the second round."

This Stupples, though, is an experienced version and she "cannot wait" to get out there and play golf. She described yesterday's round as "strategic", in the sense she used her driver only four times. This is because the course is running fast and also because she is one of the longest hitters on the LPGA tour and rarely needs more than a four-wood off the tee.

At the 475-yard second, from the back tees, she carried the road, a fact that will horrify male Sunningdale members, and was 60 yards ahead of her playing partners with only a short iron into the green. Yet she hopes to get better, stronger and fitter.

If there is one thing the world's greatest golfers have in common it is the gifted ability to score well either when playing at less than their best or when one aspect of their all-round game is letting them down.

All this season, for instance, Tiger Woods has been turning potential 76s into 70s or 72s, rescuing himself from his wildness off the tee with some sublime short-game moments. Yesterday Sorenstam, whose record on the women's tour exceeds even that of Woods on the men's, was not functioning in the machine-like manner that typifies her game when it is at its peak but she was still able to fashion a round of 68.

It is said if her putting was up to the standard of the rest of her game she would win every tournament she ever entered but she managed to hole several testing par putts yesterday which kept the momentum going.

Only once did she fail when, after two indifferent shots - by her high standards - she could reach only the front edge of the 12th green, a difficult 416-yard par-four. It meant a 25-yard putt over two humps and, though getting it to eight feet, as she did, was not bad, it was not great either.

On Wednesday Sorenstam had agreed a good description of her on the golf course was "icy" but she nearly thawed herself out with her reaction to missing the par-saver.

The glare she directed at the green would have caused most putting surfaces to wither and die.

She departed the hole swinging her putter furiously. Typically, though, she was holding the head of the club, not the handle. The ice maiden had regained control.