15-year-old Asterisk Talley tied for 5th after round 1 of the U.S. Women's Open

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Thursday afternoon Asterisk Talley fired an opening round 70 in the 2024 U.S. Women's Open at Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania.

The 15 year old Chowchilla native is the youngest player in the field and currently sits in a tie for 5th place.

"I feel like I could have done a lot better today, but I'm not mad at all about my round," Talley said after her round.

Talley is the most recent USGA champion winning the U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball title with her teammate, Sarah Lim.

After five straight pars to start, Talley chipped in for birdie at the sixth hole to move into a tie for first place.

"I look at the leaderboard all the time. I feel like some people get scared to look at it, but I don't really do that," Talley said.

"It's just I want to see where I'm at, and then if I need to start playing better golf and get my head in the game."

She'd triple bogey the 7th hole but birdies at 11 and 13 got her back to even par and on the par four 16th, Talley tagged the flagstick from 116 yards setting up a kick-in birdie.

Her fifth place standing is even more remarkable with the context that world number 1 Nelly Korda opened with an 80 putting her at +10 for the tournament.

"It's just so hard," Talley said of the course.

"The pins they had on the practice rounds, I was like, if they put the pins here I'm going to start crying. I was on the verge on a couple holes with the way I was playing. But I'm not mad with where the pins were today, the way I played the course, so I feel like I'm happy with how I did."

Talley is just two shots off the lead set by Yuka Saso who won the US Women's Open as a teenager in 2021.

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