Patty Tavatanakit ‘enjoying the moment’ during bogey-free opening round at Chevron Championship

Patty Tavatanakit, the 2021 Chevron Championship winner, finished her opening round at Memorial Park on Thursday bogey-free and doing her best to soak it all in.

“I feel like I was just out there and I was just enjoying like the moment and just really was just looking at what’s in front of me the whole time,” Tavatanakit said.

The 26-year-old shot 5-under 67 and finished early in the day, tied for first—well aware that the leaderboard could look very different at the end of the first round and the weekend.

“I don’t know how it’s going to set me up,” she explained. “I just know that I have three more rounds ahead of me and I’m going to do my best and just give it a good go.”

Tavatanakit seemed to be firing on all cylinders during the first major of the season in Houston. On No. 15, she sunk a birdie putt from way downtown to climb the leaderboard to T-2.

“I’m pretty like confident with my short game I would say, so it does open up a lot of room to not be perfect with everything else,” she said.

Then on No. 17, she hit the shot of the day, launching the ball over the water from the rough, settling next to the pin to set up a birdie.

“Iron play was decent,” she said after the round. “I would say, like, it’s still not where I want it to be. At the same time, like, I’m not out there to chase perfection.

“I feel like that is the definition of golf a little bit, is, like, you’re not going always have it your way.”

Tavatanakit finished T-5 last week at the JM Eagle LA Championship but prior to the trip to El Caballero Country Club hadn’t been in contention all season. She said over her career, she’s learned the hard way to stay resilient.

“I feel like over the years of having to scramble a round of golf together, it definitely helped me stay that way,” she said. “How you can kind of scramble around and put a round together matters more than how you actually are striping it or how actual, you know, your game is.”

The Thai native has two career LPGA Tour wins, including one major championship at the ANA Inspiration (now, the Chevron Championship). While she aims for another, Tavatanakit admitted she wasn’t perfect Thursday and wished she drove the ball better, but was able to get the job done.

“My job is to get the ball inside the hole as fast as I can,” she said, “and I feel like did that really well.”