BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Thursday morning was muggy at Shoal Creek, the air as still as the turf was soggy. When there was a little breeze, it felt like a gift. For that matter, given that nearly 5 inches of rain fell over the past several days, the very fact that the first round of the 73rd U.S. Women's Open got underway as scheduled seemed a present.
Emma Talley, who is grateful and gracious come sunshine or clouds, good round or bad round, started off the 10th tee a little after 8 o'clock. Home games rarely happen in professional golf, but Talley, a 24-year-old Alabama graduate and LPGA rookie, is getting her version this week.
"I honestly didn't have too bad of nerves today, which was good," Talley said after shooting a 2-over 74, seven shots behind co-leaders Ariya Jutanugarn, Sarah Jane Smith and Jeongeun6 Lee. "Maybe I should have. This place is like heaven on earth to me. I've said that a thousand times this week. It really is. I felt at peace here, so had no nerves. Maybe I need to make myself nervous tomorrow."
She has been a Shoal Creek member for two years as part of the club's Tour Hopefuls program to support fledgling pros with area ties trying to make their way in a tough business. Talley arrived at her fifth U.S. Women's Open having played Shoal Creek dozens of times, some of them abbreviated because of the 13th green's proximity to the clubhouse.
A few weeks ago, Talley -- who has two top-10 finishes and is 43rd on the LPGA money list -- was in a playoff at a sectional qualifier to make it into a major championship on a course that she knows and loves. "I was more nervous than I've ever been in my life," Talley recalled Wednesday. "I was shaking on the 6-footer to get in. I was really, really excited to be playing at my home course at the U.S. Open. Then I got here and saw all the stuff, and oh my gosh, this is the best day of my life."
Talley is from Princeton, Kentucky, a town of about 6,000 people in the western part of the Bluegrass State. "It's what you see in the movies, I guess," said Talley, "a four-stoplight town where everybody goes to the football games, the whole town. Has an Emma Talley sign [at the town limits]. It's a very small town and everybody knows everyone's business a little too much probably."
While no one wins the U.S. Women's Amateur title, an NCAA individual championship and starts out solidly in pro golf without being a fierce competitor, there is a calming softness to her personality, too.
"Thanks for volunteering," Talley told a man controlling a crosswalk on the No. 10 fairway. She asked the standard-bearer about her golf game on one hole, came over and hugged a friend on another.
"She's like her mother [Jennifer], and she's always been real easy to get along with and everybody seems to like her," said her father, Dan, an optometrist. "She's known for being friendly. She's like that inside and outside of golf."
It's just Emma being Emma.
"I love people and this game is really cool," Talley said. "Golf is the one sport where you get to talk to everyone around you. No other sport do you get to say, 'Hey, what's up? How's your family?' -- carry on a conversation. I've loved golf for that reason, and I'm going to look back and have a lot of friends all around the world, hopefully."
Two friends from Talley's hometown area -- Matt and Bristyn Prowell -- were in her opening-round gallery. Mark wore an Alabama cap with an inscription and Talley's signature on the brim. The Prowells met Emma when she was a child attending youth sports contests.
"When Emma was a little kid, I sat with her momma at basketball games [and] she would come up and bother her to death like any little kid," Matt said. "I'd always ask for her autograph. When she signed with Alabama, she gave it to me. Her personality has never changed. She was that way as a kid. Her personality is top of the chart."
Emma is the youngest of four children in the Talley family, which didn't play golf despite living near Princeton Golf & Country Club. "My husband thought since we lived on a golf course, somebody should play golf," Jennifer said. "So we took her brother Jackson out, and he didn't like it. She tagged along and enjoyed it and started playing."
And playing well. Talley won 10 American Junior Golf Association events, four in a row in 2011 and once by 22 strokes, both records. Jennifer wore out two Chevy Suburbans over a decade driving her daughter nearly a half-million miles to tournaments around America. "We were fortunate," Dan said. "My wife didn't work and could take her to those things. She got exposed to a lot of good players at an early age. A lot of these players here are kids we've known forever. It's the same group -- they're just a little older."
Talking to reporters after her opening round, Talley summarized it as "rough," given that she chunked a pitch en route to a double-bogey on her third hole, missed a 2-footer for birdie on one of the par 5s and watched an on-the-money 7-iron at her 17th hole carom off the flagstick instead of snuggle close to the cup.
"I'm happy, honestly, to be at plus-2," Talley said. "It could have been a little worse. It was weird playing on my home course, but now I got one round under my belt, so hopefully tomorrow will be better."
One of the assembled journalists was local writer Ian Thompson, who had interviewed Talley for a pre-tournament story.
"No airs and plenty of graces," Thompson said. "I texted her a couple of weeks ago to talk in advance of the Open. She apologized for taking a little while to text me back -- it was less than a day. And she thanked me after we talked for interviewing her. And after I sent her a copy of the story, she texted me thanks for that. You just don't get that normally. She's a cut above."