Three teams top deep Women's Int'l Four-Ball field after Day 1

There are 12 USGA champions in the Women’s International Four-Ball field this week, and three of them own a share of the lead. After 18 holes at the Wanderer’s Club in Wellington, Fla., three teams floated to the top with opening rounds of 3-under 69.

Those teams include Ina Kim and Meghan Stasi (a four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion), Katie Miller and Lauren Greenlief (the 2015 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion) and Megan Buck and Shannon Johnson (the reigning U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion).

Miller and Greenlief combined to win this event this year, and the two years before that, Miller won the title with partner Charlotte Daughan. On Wednesday, Greenlief contributed birdies on the first and ninth holes while Miller threw in her only birdie of the day at No. 13.

Miller’s birdie allowed them to catch up with Kim and Stasi, who got hot at the start of the day with three birdies on the opening three holes.

Johnson and Buck, meanwhile, ham-and-egged well, with Johnson contributing crucial pars in the opening two holes before Buck made the team’s first birdie. Buck contributed two more, at Nos. 9 and 18.

Behind the leaders, seven-time USGA champion Ellen Port teamed with reigning U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur champion Lara Tennant to log a 1-under 71. That left the duo in a tie for fourth with Alicia Kapheim and Tara Fleming.