From Epson Tour

Kaleigh Telfer and Alena Sharp stacked up birdies during the opening round on Thursday of the Epson Tour’s Copper Rock Championship, both signing 8-under 64s to hold a one-shot lead over Daniel Iacobelli.

The pair combined for 17 birdies and only one bogey, with both players coming from the morning wave. The wind started to pick up as the day went on, making for challenging afternoon conditions, but Jessica Porvasnik was still able to post six-under 66 to have the best round of the afternoon.

Telfer is making her first appearance at the Copper Rock Championship and was only one shot off in tying the course record during her debut in Hurricane, Utah. The eight-under round was bogey-free for the 25-year-old, matching the lowest round of her Epson Tour career. The round for Telfer was remarkably consistent, with the South African native’s longest stretch without a birdie on the card being three holes. Telfer will have to battle through the much more difficult afternoon conditions in her second round, but she is confident in her game and feels like it has started to come together at the end of the West Coast swing.

“I think just the past couple of weeks, everything started to fall into place. And then today, it just all fell into place,” said Telfer. “The putter was hot. I made a couple of good par saves when I needed to and then hit my irons really close, which was nice to have a couple of six-footers for birdie and just made them all. Nine was my last hole, with the whole grandstand full behind the green. It just feels like a really important tournament, which is nice.”