LANCASTER, Pa. — Former champion Yuka Saso leaned on her putter to survive a brutally tough start to the U.S. Women’s Open on Thursday, an opening round that featured Nelly Korda making a 10 on her third hole and only four players barely beating par.

Saso had three big par putts to start the back nine at Lancaster Country Club, rolled in two medium-length birdie putts toward the end of her round and finished with three putts from the collar of the 18th green for bogey and a 2-under 68.

It felt even lower than that considering all the carnage around her. The leading 10 players from the women’s world ranking had an average score of 75.5 — including Korda’s 80 — and only two-time major champion Minjee Lee was not over par.

“It’s a U.S. Open. It’s a major. It’s the biggest major championship, and I think it’s one of the most difficult weeks that we’ll play,” Saso said. “I don’t tell myself to be confident or anything like that.”

Saso, who seized on a Lexi Thompson meltdown in 2021 to win the Women’s Open at Olympic Club, led by one shot over Andrea Lee, Wichanee Meechai of Thailand and recently crowned NCAA champion Adela Cernousek of France.

Cernousek, a junior at Texas A&M, had company among amateurs. Three of them were in the group at even-par 70 — U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Megan Schofill, Catherine Park and 15-year-old Asterisk Talley, who is coming off her first USGA title at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-ball Championship.

Lee, who picked up her second major in the Women’s Open at Pine Needles two years ago, holed out from 15 feet just off the green at the par-3 17th to get back to even par.

The rest of the LPGA Tour’s biggest stars took a beating, none as bad or as shocking as Korda. The No. 1 player in women’s golf, Korda arrived at Lancaster having won six of her last seven tournaments. Three holes into her opening round, she was sent reeling.

Korda hit from a back bunker into a stream on the par-3 12th hole, and then pitched into the stream from the other side twice on her way to a 10. She added four bogeys over the next 15 holes and signed for an 80, matching her highest round as a professional.

“Not a lot of positive thoughts, honestly,” Korda said. “I just didn’t play well today. I didn’t hit it good. I found myself in the rough a lot. Making a 10 on a par 3 will definitely not do you any good at a U.S. Open.

“Yeah,” she concluded, “just a bad day at the office.”

It was a bad day for so many others. Rose Zhang, who ended Korda’s five-tournament winning streak three weeks ago in New Jersey, looked to be shell-shocked when she walked off the 18th green with yet another three-putt bogey and a 79.

Lydia Ko and Brooke Henderson each shot 80. The average score for the field was 75.2.

The wind was swirling at some of the higher points on the course, and the greens were firm and bouncy, just how the USGA likes it. The 156-player field produced just over 900 scores of bogey or worse — in Korda’s case, a septuple bogey.

Thompson, likely playing in her final U.S. Women’s Open after announcing she will no longer play a full schedule after this year, started her back nine by going from bunker to bunker to bunker to thick rough and taking triple bogey. She shot 78.

Saso picked up 5.7 shots on the field with her putter, and it carried her to the lead.

“I made really good putts. I think I was more lucky than playing good,” Saso said.

She has a shot at a peculiar slice of victory this week if she were to win and become the only Women’s Open champion to play under two flags.

Saso won as a Filipino at the Olympic Club and the following year — before turning 21 — declared her citizenship to be Japan (her father is Japanese). A big week could also thrust her into position to get back to the Olympics under a different flag.

That feels like a long way off, especially after such a hard day of work.

“There’s so much golf left,” Saso said. “The golf course is very difficult and the conditions are very tough, especially with the wind with it swirling and when it’s blowing 15 mph with the firm greens and fast greens.”

It didn’t seem to hurt the amateur, particularly Cernousek. She dropped only two shots, one of them on a three-putt from 40 feet on the 14th hole, and held her nerve to break par. She was amazed seeing her name on every scoreboard.

“I was like, ‘Wow!’ I was watching every leaderboard on the course,” she said.

Talley is one of two 15-year-olds in the field at Lancaster and played well above her years with smart decisions when she got out of position. Her one gaffe came on the par-5 seventh hole when she only advanced her second shot about 50 yards out of the thick rough, laid up and then put it in the water fronting the green.

She made a triple bogey.

But Talley — her mother says Asterisk is Greek for “Little Star” — followed with a nine-hole stretch of three birdies and six pars, not dropping another shot until the 17th,

“I feel like I could have done a lot better today, but I’m not mad at all about my round,” Talley said. “I was hearing everybody even par is a good round today. I wish I could have been a couple under par.”

PGA: David Skinns had six birdies in a seven-hole stretch and shot an 8-under 62 at Hamilton Golf and Country Club to take the first-round lead in the RBC Canadian Open at Hamilton, Ontario.

Playing in the afternoon with the greens still mostly receptive after rain earlier in the week, Skins pulled ahead with a 47-foot birdie putt on his 17th hole — the par-3 eighth. The 41-year-old Englishman was a stroke ahead of morning starters Sam Burns and Sean O’Hair.

Robert MacIntyre of Scotland had a 64 in the afternoon. Ryan Palmer opened with a 65, and two-time Canadian Open champion Rory McIlroy was another shot back with Ryan Fox, Andrew Novak, Erik van Rooyen, Nick Hardy and Trace Crowe.

Defending champion Nick Taylor shot a 72, playing alongside fellow Canadian Taylor Pendrith and McIlroy. Last year at Oakdale in Toronto, Taylor made an 80-foot eagle putt in a playoff to become the first Canadian to win the event since 1954.

EUROPEAN OPEN:  Jannik De Bruyn, a 24-year-old German ranked No. 818, was a surprising first-round leader by four shots at Hamburg, Germany, in his home country after a 9-under 64.

De Bruyn, who graduated from qualifying school at the end of 2023, made 11 birdies at Green Eagle Golf Courses — including six of his first seven holes and then each of his final four holes.

He missed the cut in six of his last eight tournaments, with the undoubted highlight in that period being a tie for 13th at the Indian Open.

Laurie Canter of England and Jack Davidson of Wales, who is ranked No. 810, were tied for second place after shooting 68s in a rare par-73 layout on the  tour.