Paula Creamer and Meg Mallon lead with opening rounds of 67

Paula Creamer birdied the final seven holes Thursday to match US veteran Meg Mallon atop the leaderboard on five-under par 67 after the opening round of the LPGA Tournament of Champions.

The 21-year-old American, a third-year LPGA player who has not won since the opener in Hawaii last February, took bogeys at the seventh and ninth holes but began her birdie binge at the par-4 12th.

After that, Creamer birdied two par-3s, two par-4s and two par-5s to complete the run, which left her level with Mallon, 44, who last won an LPGA event in 2004. Mallon has not cracked the top 10 in any event since 2005.

Mallon also fired seven birdies and two bogeys to stand with Creamer two strokes ahead of South Koreans Mi Hyun Kim and Seon Hwa Lee, Americans Natalie Gulbis and Pat Hurst and Norway's Suzann Pettersen, all sharing third on 69.

Koreans Se Ri Pak and Jin Joo Hong were on 70 with Koreans Jimin Kang and Hee-Won Han, Americans Heather Young and Kim Saiki-Maloney and Swedish star Annika Sorenstam all on 71.

World number one Lorena Ochoa of Mexico opened with a 74.

The select event features 35 winners of LPGA events from 2004 through this season and is the penultimate event of the season, the final set-up for next week's Tour Championship.