Ji Eun-Hee shot a six-under 66 in windy conditions on Thursday to take a one-stroke lead in the LPGA Taiwan Championship.
The 29-year-old South Korean birdied five of her final seven holes at Miramar. She holed two chips and had only 23 putts.
"I didn't fight with the wind. I was just using the wind a lot," Ji said.
"My ball flight wasn't too much lower today. I just see my ball line and I just look at my shot, my image was really good."
Ji won the 2008 LPGA Championship and 2009 US Women's Open, both major tournaments, for her lone LPGA Tour titles.
China's Lin Xi-yu was second after the opening round of the Taiwan Championship on Thursday.
"My putter helped me a lot today," Lin said. "I'm really confident with my putting now, which has really helped me with the other parts of the game."
American Morgan Pressel, England's Charley Hull, Germany's Sandra Gal and South Korea's Sun Young Yoo shot 68. Pressel birdied the final two holes, holing a 25-footer on the par-5 18th.
"I didn't put myself in a whole lot of trouble," Pressel said. "I was a little upset with my one bogey, because it was just a club error, a mistake, not a poor shot or anything like that.
"It was a tough wind to judge which clubs to hit on certain holes, and some of the holes are cross-wind and that makes it challenging - slightly hurting, slightly helping."
Second-ranked Lydia Ko topped the group at 69 and has a share of seventh.
"I was hitting the ball pretty well, so that made it a whole lot easier to play out there," Ko said.
"If you're striking the ball well, you can kind of trust your ball flight and kind of use the wind from there. It wasn't easy, especially the last couple holes."
Minjee Lee is the best placed Australian after the opening day. Lee shot an even-par round of 72 and has a share of 27th.
