Defending champion and world number two Brooke Henderson fired a seven-under par 65 to seize a two-stroke lead during the first round of the LPGA Portland Classic yesterday.
 The 18-year-old Canadian, who won last year’s event by eight strokes to become the third-youngest winner in tour history, made a solid start toward repeating as champion with nine birdies against two bogeys at the 6,476-yard Columbia Edgewater Country Club in Portland, Oregon.
 “It was a good day,” she said. “I just really like it here. It suits my eye. Winning here last year, that gives me those extra vibes and extra adrenaline which I think will help as the week goes on.”
 With the last groups just onto the course, Henderson led American Demi Runas and Colombia’s Mariajo Uribe by two strokes with Japan’s Ayako Uehara and American Daniela Iacobelli on 68.
 Henderson began her round on the back nine with a birdie at the par-5 10th, answered a bogey at the par-3 13th with a birdie on 14 and then closed that side of the course with consecutive birdies.
 “I started off with a birdie on the first hole and then nothing was really happening through the first five, just getting things rolling again and being out here,” she said.
 Henderson, who won her first major title three weeks ago at the Women’s PGA Championship by downing top-ranked Lydia Ko in a playoff, birdied the par-3 second hole but took a bogey at the fourth only to respond by reeling off four birdies in a row, two on par-5 holes and the last a 36-foot birdie putt on the par-3 eighth.
 “I was able to make four birdies coming in right in a row to put myself in a good position,” Henderson said, admitting she was bothered by the bogey at four.
 “I came off a bogey and I knew I had two par-5s which were really gettable,” she added. “I kind of put my focus on them and I was able to get them. Then a long birdie putt on eight that I’m very thankful for. Wasn’t really expecting it to go in, but I’m very happy.”
 Fond memories of her 2015 victory made the stroll around the course even happier.  “Just walking around I remember some of the shots I hit,” she said. “Some of the pin placements are kind of similar, so trying to think back to what the putts did and how they broke... Yeah, a lot of great memories.”

Thompson, Henderson, Ko top US Open bill
World number one Lydia Ko of New Zealand will play alongside Canada’s second-ranked Brooke Henderson and fourth-ranked American Lexi Thompson in the first two rounds of next week’s 71st US Women’s Open.
 Pairings released yesterday by the US Golf Association put the world’s three top-rated healthy players in the same group that tees off the 10th hole among the opening day’s final trios at CordeValle in San Martin, California.
 World number three Park In-Bee of South Korea has withdrawn from the event with a left thumb injury.
 Ko, 19, won back-to-back LPGA major titles at the 2015 Evian Championship and this year’s ANA Inspiration but her bid for three in a row was thwarted when Henderson beat her with a birdie on the first playoff hole to win the Women’s PGA Championship on June 12.
 The Kiwi teen has four titles this year including her major in April, the Kia Classic warm-up event one week earlier, last week’s Northwest Arkansas Championship and the New Zealand Women’s Open, which she captured for the third time in four years.
 Henderson, 18, won her only LPGA title other than her first major at last year’s Portland Classic, a crown she is defending this week ahead of her bid for back-to-back major victories. Henderson shared fifth at last year’s US Women’s Open, just as she had at last year’s Women’s PGA before claiming the crown this year.
 Thompson, 21, won her only major title at the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship, which last year became known as the ANA Inspiration. She has top-10 finishes in eight of the past 13 women’s majors. She was seventh at the US Women’s Open two years ago for her best result but last year shared 42nd, her worst showing in the event.
 Defending champion Chun In-Gee, the world number six from South Korea, was matched for the first two rounds alongside 2015 US Women’s Amateur champion Hannah O’Sullivan, the Singapore-born American who tops the world women’s amateur rankings, and ninth-ranked American Stacy Lewis, who was the 2014 US Women’s Open runner-up and who shared third last year.