Lydia Ko keeps Ariya Jutanugarn, Inbee Park in sight with hole-out for eagle in Rio

Lydia Ko got off to an uncharacteristically sluggish start in Wednesday’s Olympics opener, but it was nothing that a late-round hole-out for eagle could not cure.

“It was my first eagle at the Olympics, so I think it’s great,” Ko said after finishing Day 1 at 2-under 69 and in a tie for 11th place, four shots back of leader Ariya Jutanugarn. “I was even-par at that point in my round, so [to] go from zero to 2-under I think was a great turnaround.”

Ko, the favorite to win a gold medal this week in Rio, began her medal quest by saving par after losing her opening tee shot in a fairway bunker. Her approach to the second green from the ubiquitous sand on Gil Hanse’s sandbelt-like Rio Olympic Golf Course elicited kudos.

But the winner of four tour events in 2016 then proceeded to drop two successive shots before getting one back and making the turn at 1-over.

“It feels if you don’t birdie No. 9 you’re losing to the field a little bit,” Golf Channel and LPGA Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam noted after Ko’s birdie putt failed to find the cup. Her playing partners Anna Nordqvist and Charley Hull both carded 3s on the par-4 ninth.

Ko made up for that missed opportunity with back-to-back birdies on Nos. 10 and 11 but dropped another shot on 13.

For sure, the hole-out from 136 yards with a 9-iron on the 15th fairway saved her round, which she finished with three closing pars.

“I didn’t start off very well. I pretty much scrambled on the first two holes and came off with good pars,” Ko said. “So I’m happy that I ended up 2-under par. I think it’s a solid start to the first round of the Olympics.”

Jutanugarn, for her part, took the momentum she built from her first major victory at the Women’s British Open two weeks ago and just continued to roll. Second only to Ko in the world rankings, the 20-year-old from Thailand had an eagle of her own, on the par-5 fifth. That evened up her scorecard after a double-bogey on the par-3 fourth.

“I’m not really worried about that,” Jutanugarn said about the double, “because I feel like, it’s just one bad hole.”

It’s somewhat silly to talk about scoring records, since Wednesday was the first round of Olympic golf for women since 1900, but Jutanugarn did set the new mark with her 65, according to GolfChannel.com. She’ll enter Thursday’s second round with a one-shot edge over former world No. 1 Inbee Park and Sei Young Kim.

As for Park, it would appear that her long layoff to nurse a nagging thumb injury was just what she needed. The seven-time major winner, who had been sidelined from the LPGA Tour since early June, broke out of a brief four-way tie with her third birdie in a row, after making the turn at 2-under.

“I really think it doesn’t matter how my thumbs feels right now,” said Park. “I want to give it my best this week, and that injury is not going to be a problem this week.”

Park’s ball-striking was stellar, which made her only real hiccup stand out -- on the par-5 18th, when her mishit approach shot rolled all the way to a hospitality tent. After taking a favorable drop and finding the green, her birdie putt was a bit wide right, leading to a bogey-free 66.

The rust was apparent on the greens more than anywhere else.

“The one thing that I’m really happy about is that I had that many opportunities out there today,” Park said. “Out of the six putts, I probably should have made two or three. A couple of them were just misread and a couple of them were really good putts. Just didn’t quite drop.”

Should Park retire after the season’s fifth major, the Evian Championship, which she said on Tuesday was a possibility, a gold medal would certainly be a fitting way to end her Hall of Fame career.