Cheyenne Woods at RACV Royal Pines Resort on Friday

Matching pairs of 69 and 67 see American Cheyenne Woods and South African Stacy Lee Bregman share the halfway lead at the Volvik RACV Ladies Masters.

However, the biggest news came towards the end of the day, when defending champion, Karrie Webb was disqualified from the tournament for signing an incorrect scorecard.  Webb inadvertently had forgotten about the change in par from 72 to 73 and thought she had signed for a two-over-par, when the scorer check person said 74 to her, she said that’s correct. 

Tournament Director, Fraser Munro explained what happened, “Yes, it was bought to our attention that there was potentially a score that Karrie disputed.  Unfortunately in this situation she signed for what she thought was the correct score – she had a 5 on the 12th hole on her scorecard but she actually had a six.  So she breached what we would call rule 6.6 b) signing for an incorrect score – that was lower than the score that she had actually taken. “

Webb was very disappointed and upset when she realised what she had done and went straight to the officials.   She later tweeted “To all the sponsors and fans of the Volvik Australian Ladies Masters, I’m sorry for letting you all down.”

On a day of low scoring, both players were out early on a sunny morning at the RACV Royal Pines layout and soared up the leader board.    Woods round included five birdies, one bogey and an eagle on the first, her 10th hole, when she holed her 7-iron shot from 150 yards.

“It was a great today. I played really steady throughout the entire round,” Woods said.  “My putter was working really well for me and I was hitting the ball really well. Like I said, it was a steady day; my highlight was definitely my 10th hole, holing from the fairway. “

Asked if any particular part of her game stood out, she responded, “I would say overall my whole game was pretty good; putting was definitely what helped me today. My one bogey was a three putt but besides that, I wasn’t hitting it extremely close, but I was making 10 – 15 footers, so it was great.”

Stacy Lee Bregman in action on Friday

Bregman had a phenomenal round considering she snapped her 8-iron on her opening hole after hitting a tee and had to play the remainder of her round without it.

The 27-year-old South African is attributing her form to coming out to Australia early and playing in the Club Car Series and other ALPG major tournaments.

“I don’t normally play the Pro-Ams and it seems like they are paying off. The ALPG has done a great job hosting all those events to lead up to this and given us internationals a chance to get a nice warm up and I think it has done me the world of good.”

“I have been playing well the last couple of weeks. I have a good caddy of the bag, Steve Walsh and he’s kept me calm and nothing really fazes him and he knows what to say to me at the right time.”

The pair hold a one shot lead over England’s Trish Johnson who had a hot putter and fired a seven-under-par 66.  Swede Camilla Lennarth (67) is outright fourth at eight-under-par.   England’s Charley Hull also went low, her seven-under-par 66 to share fifth place with first round leader American Katie Burnett.

First round co-leader American Jessica Korda is tied for 11th after an even par second round. The cut was made at three-over and 70 players will tee it up on the week-end.