France’s Lucie Malchirand fired an opening round five-under 67 to seize the first-round lead on home soil at the Hauts de France Open on the LET Access Series (LETAS).
The Frenchwoman, 23, leads the pair of Canada’s Ashley Chow and Austria’s Johanna Ebner (both 68) by one stroke at Aa Saint-Omer Golf Club.
This year’s tournament is once again co-sanctioned with the men’s Alps Tour. The 132-player field features equal representation from both tours, at 66 players apiece. While all players will compete on the same course under identical conditions, they will contend for separate prize funds and individual titles.
After a three-week break in the calendar, Malchirand marked her return to action with aplomb by stringing three straight birdies in her first three holes.
“It was a great round, I’m really happy with what I did,” she said. “It was a great day, played well, good driving, good wedging, great putting. It’s been three weeks that I was at home, so I think it was a nice break.
“After the break, birdie, birdie, birdie and then I made a bogey, then an eagle so I was like okay, it’s my day today. That was great. Just tried to keep my head down after the eagle, made some pars, some birdies again.”
After trading a bogey on hole 13 with an eagle on the par-5 14th hole, Malchirand made the turn five-under by birdieing the par-5 18th.
Despite dropping shots on the par-4 3rd and 5th holes, Malchirand got back to five-under with closing birdies on the par-4 7th and 9th holes.
“It was good shots, but stupid strategy,” she said about the bogeys. “That’s the thing on this course. If you miss on the wrong side, you’re just going to make a hard par. Tomorrow I will try to keep my head down and just be on the safe places.”
Before the break, Malchirand had missed her back-to-back cuts at two challenging courses in HimmerLand, Denmark and Tale, Slovakia. She not only spent her downtime getting some much-needed rest but also worked on her golf game.
“I went to the beach,” she said. “I live in the south of France so I’ve been to Corsica for a week with my best friend, and then just stayed two weeks a home to practice a lot and trying to improve my game, trying to figure out how to put some putts in the hole, and that’s what I did.
“I know this course. It’s been three years that I’m playing on it, so I feel like I know the challenge. Some of the holes are kind of weird. I know how and where to layup, be calm, and know how to get the birdies when I need to.
“So that was pretty nice to start again this season on a course I know, and in France. I feel like this is a really strategic course. If you know the good and bad holes, that’s the most important thing.”
Once a LET winner at the Ladies Italian Open in 2021, Malchirand’s immediate priority is to return to Europe’s biggest stage.
She currently sits 40th in the LETAS Order of Merit (OOM) but can rise as high as 7th with a win this week. The top seven players on the OOM at the end of the season will earn their LET cards for the 2027 season.
“We still have a lot of tournaments to play, but if I can to the final stage of Q-school, I think that will make a huge difference,” Malchirand said.
“I really want to go back on LET. I saw all my friends are playing now on the LET, so I’m just trying to do my best to join them next year.”
Hot on Malchirand’s heel is Canada’s Ashley Chow, who mixed an eagle, five birdies and three bogeys.
Despite beginning the season strong with four top 15 and seven top 25 finishes in her first seven events, Chow’s form began to tail off towards the end of the three-month stretch.
She missed four cuts in the past five events before the three-week break. Chow, who was the first golfer in 2026 to make 100 birdies this season, is the only player on the LETAS to have played in all 13 events of the 19-tournament season so far.
“I think it’s a huge confidence booster just to know that part of me was unsure towards the end of the last stretch,” she said. “It’s like, am I playing really badly or am I just tired?
“And now it’s nice to have that affirmation that it’s like, okay, no, I actually am good and I’m playing well and I don’t have to get freaked out. I just probably overdid it by playing all the events.”
Chow also had the advantage of family support, with her parents flying out from Canada to support her at this event.
“This is the first event my dad and my mom have come to,” she said. “In the past, they haven’t always seen me play well. So it’s nice to play well in front of them and show that I can golf.
“They both work full time, so normally, even in college, they didn’t really come to many events. And I was usually a little nervous when they would come.
“I had my mom on the bag, which was really nice because this course is a little bit hilly to walk. I’s nice to have the physical support there and obviously the mental support.”
Chow’s day got off to a rocky start when she realised she lost her gloves, meaning she had to play barehanded. Yet it wasn’t a situation that fazed her.
“One of the things I was working on, to be fair, in my swing, was a grip change,” she said. “When I was first working on the grip change, I felt like I could feel it better without gloves. That and a mix of I’ve just lost all my gloves.
“There are no gloves in the bag now, but it’s not a foreign feeling for me to play without gloves. I’ve been practicing, even on course and everything in the last three weeks without gloves just so I can feel the grip a little bit better.”
After finishing her first nine holes even-par, Chow sandwiched a bogey on the par-3 second hole with birdies on holes 1 and 3 to move into the red digits.
“I think with it being the first tournament back, my front nine, I was a little hesitant,” she said. “Just centre greens, not playing aggressively. Just trying to ease back into a competitive mindset. Like when you’ve been off for a while, it feels weird even to hit the three footers under pressure.
“And then I think by the back nine I was like, oh, okay, I’m fine, I can golf. It’s okay. And then I just kind of relaxed and hit some good shots.”
She drove the green on the short par-4 6th hole and made eagle from six feet, before birdieing the par-5 7th hole to surge up the leaderboard.
“I actually hadn’t played (hole) six until today because in my practice round, it was the pro-am and we got rained out,” she said. “When I was looking at the yardage book, I was like, I think I just hit driver over the bunker. I felt like there’s a lot of room to miss in it.
“I was a little freaked out because the two girls I was playing with pulled out woods, and I was like, oh, was it not supposed to be driver? But I just hit driver down my line and probably got some good bounces. I mean, we can’t see it from the tee box.”
Ebner, who is also one stroke adrift of Malchirand at four-under, was the only player in the field to shoot a bogey-free round.
The Austrian birdied holes 10 and 18, before sinking an eagle putt on the closing par-5 9th to put herself in contention.
Two strokes behind Malchirand come the trio of Finland’s Anna Backman and Tiia Koivisto and Ireland’s Canice Screene (all 69).
Six players are tied for seventh place at two-under, including Finland’s Elina Saksa, United States’ Antonia Malate, Australia’s Hannah Reeves, France’s Lauren Holmey, Switzerland’s Natalie Armbruester and United Arab Emirates’ Hyeonji Kang.
Round 2 resumes at 8.05am (local time) on Friday, and there will be a cut to the top 30 professionals and ties.
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