Hanes, playing out of Crag Burn Golf Club, opened with an impressive one-over par round (73) at Seneca Falls Country Club, giving her a two-stroke lead over Ellen Oswald.

“It was very consistent,” Hanes commented on her first round. “I had two birdies, three bogeys and the rest were pars. I basically hit it on the fairway, hit it on the green, two putt and made par.”

This consistency resulted in Hanes’s opportunity to score low with a notable seven straight pars on the back nine. Going into round two, she is still looking to improve. Specifically, Hanes says “I’ll improve maybe on my irons. I struggled a bit with them today.”

Second overall is championship newcomer Ellen Oswald, who fired off ten straight par before seeing her first bogey of the day on hole 11.

“It was pretty good until the eighteenth hole,” Oswald recounted. “I doubled eighteen; I hit it out of bounds on my drive. The front nine was pretty consistent, nine pars. I ended up missing one green on the front. Then on the back nine, I putted a little better and that definitely helped my round out.”

Tomorrow her game plan is more of the same. “I’ll focus on putting. I’m looking to make more birdies out there. I only had one birdie the whole day so if I can do that, I think I’ll do better.”

Defending champion DeGroodt and several other players aren’t far behind Oswald. To comfortably secure the title, both Oswald and Hanes have their work cut out for them because as we all know, there are no guarantees in the game of golf.

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