Brittany Lincicome and Stacy Lewis are splitting more than dinner checks and lodging bills at the LPGA Tour's first major tournament of the year.
The friends and occasional road roommates overcame desert heat to shoot 6-under-par 66s Thursday, sharing the first-round lead at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Sandra Gal and Mika Miyazato were one stroke back.
Wendy Ward, who lives near Edwall, outside Spokane, was among players tied for 10th place at 70.
Paige Mackenzie, a former Washington Huskies player from Yakima, and Jimin Kang, a graduate of King's High School in Shoreline, were tied for 27th at 72. Ex-UW player Louise Friberg shot a 79 and was tied for 107th.
Despite playing in the hotter part of an unseasonably scorching day, Lincicome and Lewis handled the fast, dry Mission Hills course with similar skill. Caddies were given permission to take off their jumpsuits when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees in the afternoon.
Although they aren't rooming together this week because their parents made the trip, they went to dinner together Wednesday night.
"Stacy has been a great friend for a little while now," Lincicome said. "If we don't want our fathers or mothers to go to a tournament, we'll stay together, but she's just a really nice girl. We're kind of the same age, very low-maintenance for both of us, so it's very easygoing."
