For a second consecutive week, Rolex Rankings No. 2 Inbee Park was forced to withdraw due to a nagging thumb injury.

“Well, it was a torture out there today, but even if I don’t get to play tomorrow, I really wanted to finish it off today and just I just didn’t want to give it up in the middle of the round like last week,” Park explained. “So that was really the main goal.  Obviously I’m just really restricted on my swing, to make a couple movements it’s painful.  And just, yeah, just wanted to play with the pain and just to see if I can get over it.” 

Park is planning to skip next week’s ShopRite LPGA Classic and try to tee it up again at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

“I was really looking forward into going to the Hall of Fame moment.  So I really like to play in the KPMG tournament, defend my title,” Park said. “I have a lot of family and friends coming that week so I like to play through that week.  So I don’t know, that could be it so I’m just going to have to wait and see.”

The players at the top of the leaderboard, Christina Kim and Ariya Jutanugarn, share a friendship that has developed over the last year on Tour.

“I’m just so proud of her,” Kim said. “She’s such an incredible young woman.  She’s very shy for as aggressive a golfer as she is, which I think is comical. She’s such a wonderful person that I would just want her to be able to share her personality with everyone, so I feel really fortunate that I’m one of the people that she comes to and talks to.” 

Kim is one of the people who helped Jutanugarn through a rough stretch during her rookie season when she missed the cut in 10 straight events.

“She’s very, very, very nice person,” Jutanugarn said of Kim. “She great.  Last year I played bad and she the only person come and talk to me like, Keep going, May, you good player.  She’s such a nice person.”

Jutanugarn is certainly over last year’s slump as she has won the last two events, something that Kim saw coming.

“I think that for her it was just a matter of breaking the shell and getting over that first hump and getting that first win, and she is going to be just an absolute world beater,” Kim said. “I think it’s just so cool.  I think that hopefully Ariya will soon see the kind of golfer that we all see her as, which is terrifying.”

University of Washington alumnus Sadena Parks might have been inspired by the current Huskies women’s golf team, who on Wednesday defeated Stanford and captured the program’s first NCAA National Championship. The Spanaway, Washington native said she had tears of joy as she watched her school and former coach Mary Lou Mulflur emerge victorious at Eugene Country Club.

“I loved it, I loved it,” Parks said. “I was in a rush. I was running around the house crazy like a maniac. But it was exciting. It was a really, really, really exciting moment to see the team in that position and to pull that off. I mean, just a lot of guts and glory and fighting and Coach deserved it.”

Parks carded six birdies on her way to a first round score of 3-under 69 at the LPGA Volvik Championship, which currently puts her five shots off the lead in a tie for sixth. After starting her round with a triple bogey on the tenth hole, she collected herself and played the remaining 17 holes at 6-under par.

“I mean, it was one of those holes where my caddie and I were laughing because it’s like you’ve got to have a big number at least once in a tournament so I think I’m totally done with my big numbers,” said Parks of her first hole. “I learned a lot from that.”