Stephanie Meadow has solid first-round 67 at LPGA’s Kia Classic

It would be a step too far to say that LPGA Tour player Stephanie Meadow now speaks with a Southern twang after high school and college years spent in South Carolina and Alabama.

Neither does she carry a heavy brogue that normally would identify her as a child of Northern Ireland. It’s her porcelain skin and strawberry blond hair that reveal the heritage.

“Thirteen years in the States,” she said of the absence of an accent. “But when I get back home, right away it’s there.”

The 27-year-old who has spent nearly half her life in America is a product of two countries that have been good for her golf game.

Meadow, who shot a five-under-par 67 on Thursday to be solo second behind leader Chella Choi (65) after the first round of the Kia Classic at Aviara Golf Club, grew up about 45 miles south of Royal Portrush, where she practiced on the links course that will host this year’s British Open.

For high school, Meadow ventured to South Carolina and the International Junior Golf Academy. She chose Alabama for college, and Tuscaloosa couldn’t have treated her better. She won nine times for the Crimson Tide and set nearly every school record.

She represented Ireland in the 2016 Olympics and made her professional debut in the 2014 U.S. Open, where she stunningly finished third.

Yet there haven’t been many experiences like that, or the round Thursday, when Meadow put together five birdies without a bogey.

Just as she was ready to embark on her LPGA rookie season in 2015, her father, Robert, was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, and she took three months off to be with him before he died. Meadow played in only nine LPGA events in 2016, and the next year she suffered a stress fracture in her back.

“Played with it for another 10 weeks without knowing,” Meadow said. “Pretty scary.”

She didn’t apply for a medical exemption soon enough and ended up going in 2018 to the developmental Symetra Tour, where she came back strong with a win in the IOA Championship in Beaumont while notching 12 other top-25 results.

“Cornfields were pretty much our audience,” Meadow told the BBC of the minor league experience. But she said Thursday, “I learned a lot, and I would never change the experience.”

In forging the Kia lead, Choi birdied the last three holes and didn’t make a bogey to record her lowest score in 15 rounds this season. The 28-year-old South Korean has one tour win, in the 2015 Marathon Classic.

“I like this golf course,” Choi said. “Really good memories here. Beautiful weather, course conditions, and beautiful flowers. It’s very positive and I do my best.”

One shot behind Meadow, in a true traffic jam, were 15 players at four under, including seven-time major winner Inbee Park.

Cristie Kerr, the champion of the 2015 Kia Classic, had the shot of the day when she won a Kia car with an ace on the par-three 14^th hole, using a nine-iron from 143 yards. She shot two-over 74.

It was golf karma for Kerr. A year ago here, eventual champion Eun-Hee Ji aced the 14^th in the final round, also earning a car, and eventually beat Kerr by two shots.

Have we seen Wie’s best?

The oft-injured Michelle Wie had to withdraw from the Kia Classic this week because she suffered a setback in her recovery from extensive surgery on her right wrist in October. Her absence was a disappointment to fans and the tournament sponsor, with which she has an endorsement deal.

It’s unclear if Wie will be able to compete in next week’s ANA Inspiration in Rancho Mirage, the LPGA’s first major of the season.

On a conference call with reporters Thursday, Golf Channel on-course commentator Karen Stupples suggested that the 29-year-old Wie probably will never rise to meet the expectations put on her when she turned pro just before her 16^th birthday.

“The potential that we saw when she was an amateur playing in the ANA Inspiration all those years ago … it never really came to fruition,” Stupples said. “We had little snapshots of brilliance that she would display, and then they would disappear with another injury, and she has been plagued with those. It’s just been hard to watch.”

The Hawaii-born Wie, who has been one of the LPGA’s biggest draws, has five total wins in 10 full seasons on tour. Her only major victory came in the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst.

Wie halted a four-year victory drought in March 2018 by capturing the HSBC Women’s World Championship, but when she returned to defend Feb. 28, the comeback lasted only 14 holes. She first injured her wrist at the Women’s British Open in August and played only once more before having surgery.

Wie has disclosed that she has arthritis in both wrists, and in her career she’s suffered bursitis in her hip, bone spurs in one foot, inflammation in a knee and spasms in her back and neck.

“At this stage,” Stupples said, “with the way the injuries keep coming and going, I don’t think we’re ever going to truly see the Michelle Wie that we all wanted to see, and we all hoped would burst out and be a dominant player on the LPGA Tour.”