Ally Ewing and Jennifer Kupcho may be making their tournament debut as partners at this week’s Dow Championship in Midland, Mich., but they didn’t play like it on Thursday at Midland Country Club.
The Solheim Cup teammates posted a 6-under 64 on the first day of foursomes, carding one bogey, five birdies and an eagle to sit in a tie for the lead early at the Dow Championship.
The pair started with a par on No. 10 before grabbing a pair of back-to-back birdies on the par-5 11th and par-4 12th holes to quickly move to 2-under. Ewing and Kupcho didn’t make another birdie until the par-3 18th hole, turning in 32, and then immediately erased that effort with a bogey on the first hole.
They recovered with a birdie on the second hole to get back to 3-under overall, and after Ewing and Kupcho eagled the par-5 3rd hole, they moved to 5-under for the tournament. The duo then grabbed one last birdie on the par-4 6th hole to ultimately post a 6-under 64 and share the lead with Team Sloth Machine (Chanettee Wannasaen and Jaravee Boonchant) and Team Jin & Ronic (Ruoning Yin and Atthaya Thitikul) through 18 holes.
“We just played consistent golf. I think we got off to a good start with two birdies in the first three,” said Ewing. “We tried to hit a lot of greens. We're both pretty consistent. Just trusting each other and knowing our games and able to roll in some putts, and certainly a three on a par 5 is always going to help with only two out here.”
Kupcho agreed with her partner’s assessment of Team Ping-Pals’ first round. “We have very similar games, both in putting speed, what we usually leave ourselves,” said the three-time LPGA Tour winner. “Stress-free golf is really what we are trying to do, and I think we were successful in that.”
This week marks the third time that Ewing has competed in the Dow Championship. She first played alongside Lindy Duncan in the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2019, finishing in a tie for 24th that year, and then teed it up alongside Megan Khang in 2021, ultimately tying for 31st.
Kupcho missed the cut in her first two Dow Championship appearances in 2019 with Maria Fassi and 2021 with Mina Harigae, but she won the event in 2022 with partner Lizette Salas. It was one of three victories Kupcho captured that year as she also took home titles at The Chevron Championship and the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give.
Considering her past success with Salas, it might have been a bit of a surprise to see Kupcho competing alongside Ewing this week in the Great Lakes State. But having played on numerous Solheim Cup teams together, Ewing seemed she would be a good partner to Kupcho, even if it took a bit of convincing to get the Mississippi native to play this week in Michigan.
“I asked her about 20 times,” said Kupcho of Team Ping-Pals origin story, “and then she finally said yes.”
Ewing gave a bit more detail. “That was basically it, but I'm really happy to be here,” she said. “We have played Solheim. We've never played together, so it's been fun knowing that our games are very similar to put them up together. Maybe a potential future pairing. We'll see.”
The pair didn’t focus too hard on creating a firm-and-fast strategy for the foursomes format, knowing that the solidity of their combined ball-striking would carry them at a scorable Midland Country Club. That easygoing mindset is one that Ewing and Kupcho will continue to carry forward into tomorrow’s four-ball round as they look to break away from the logjam at the top and pursue their first Dow Championship title as partners over the weekend at Midland Country Club.
“I was playing the odds, (Ally) was playing evens. I don't know if there was a whole lot of strategy,” said Kupcho of the pair’s plan for foursomes. “She wanted the evens, so I was like, all right, cool, sounds good.
“We haven't really talked about (four-ball strategy), but I think just continuing to give ourselves birdie chances. If we have two putts on every hole, chances are something is going to roll in. I think just giving ourselves chances and seeing what we can do.”
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