Women’s British Open

It was Lydia Ko who climbs the first-round leader board on Thursday at the Women’s British Open when her group was put on the clock for slow play. The move was probably funnier to her than any punch line delivered by her coach and caddie, Guy Wilson, who told her jokes between shots at Royal Liverpool Golf Club to relax her.
 

Not progressing in a timely fashion tends not to be an issue for the 15-year-old Ko, who last month was crowned the United States Women’s Amateur champion and then became the youngest winner in the history of the L.P.G.A. Tour.
 

Playing Royal Liverpool Golf Club in the morning, before the wind picked up and the temperatures dropped precipitously, Ko completed her round in 4 hours 35 minutes and carded an even-par 72. She is tied with 16 other golfers, including top-ranked Yani Tseng, and is two strokes behind the leaders, Haeji Kang and So Yeon Ryu of South Korea.

“It was a good feeler of a round to give us an idea of what is out there,” Wilson said.
Ko, a South Korean-born New Zealander, was one under after nine holes when she and her playing partners, Lexi Thompson, 17, and Kaori Ohe, 22, were told a second time that they needed to pick up the pace.
 

The first group off the 10th tee, the threesome made the turn in 2 hours 20 minutes, which was speed golf compared with the six-hour rounds that were the norm during Ko’s major championship debut in June at the United States Women’s Open. She finished as the low amateur, in a tie for 39th.

“At that points you’re kind of like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want to get penalized,’ ” said Ko, who did not appear stressed.
 

Then again, not much appears to faze her, her equanimity on the course winning her raves among veterans like Laura Davies, 48, who described her temperament as brilliant, and said, “She is very calm, and I don’t think a bogey or a double bogey will affect her.”
At No. 1, a brute of a par 4, Ko and Thompson hit their tee shots and were standing by their balls by the time Ohe, who had ducked into a portable toilet and had not heard the second warning, arrived at the tee box.
 

After hitting her drive, Ohe sprinted down the fairway to catch up with her playing partners in a scene reminiscent of the games of chase that Wilson used to play with Ko between shots when she was younger to keep the game from being boring.
 

Using her 3-wood, Ko put her drive in the fairway, which is protected by bunkers and looks as narrow as an emery board from the tee box. She hit her 5-wood approach to 10 feet and made the uphill birdie putt to move, temporarily, into a share of the lead, at two under. She was tied with Paula Creamer and Karrie Webb, who have a combined eight major titles, and Charley Hull, a 16-year-old amateur from Britain. Hull finished with a 71, as did Webb, while Creamer posted a 73.
 

Ko and Wilson laughed as they walked off the green, but not at the absurdity of two teenagers atop the leader board of the women’s fourth major, which was pushed back several weeks this year so it would not coincide with the London Olympics. In practice rounds on Monday and Wednesday, which Ko played in heavy rain and howling winds, she had double-bogeyed the first hole.
 

Twice on her second nine, Ko made back-to-back bogeys: on Nos. 2 and 3, and 6 and 7. Her par putt on the sixth, after a bad chip, came up four feet short, and she had a 2-footer rim out on the seventh. She also missed a short putt for par at No. 11, after birdieing her opening hole, the 493-yard par-5 10th.
 

“That’s not good,” Ko said, adding that she found the shorter putts harder than the longer ones.

“A 3-foot putt can be more nerve-racking than a 9-foot putt because a 3-foot putt you should be getting in,” she explained. “A 9-footer, there’s a chance it won’t go in. So maybe that’s why that happens.”
 

By the time Ko’s group arrived at the par-3 sixth, play was backed up, and they had to wait awhile for the green to clear.
 

“While that little incident with the clock looks like it affected us, I don’t think we can blame it,” said Wilson, who is taking time out from his coaching duties with the Institute of Golf to shepherd Ko this week.
 

“But it’s difficult,” he added. “As a group we were trying to go as quick as possible, and then you go from running to pretty much crawling.”
 

The fierce winds that were forecast for the afternoon never materialized, and the rain that can make the course trying also stayed away.
 

“Today was probably the easiest it’ll ever play,” Ko said, alluding to the relatively benign weather in the morning.

She added: “I think this is one of the hardest golf courses I’ve ever played. Shooting even par, it’s not a bad round, and I think it’s a pretty good start.”
 

Hull, a member of the Britain and Ireland team that beat the United States in the Curtis Cup earlier this year, has played in four other professional events in 2012 and has made each cut.
 

Asked if she knew Ko, Hull said, “Well, I’ve heard of her.”
 

She added, “I think she’s very great, though, isn’t she?”