MOBILE (Alabama) (AFP) - South Koreans Song-Hee Kim and Grace Park each fired five-under par 67s to share the lead after Thursday's opening round of the $1.3 million LPGA Avnet Classic. Kim, seeking her first tour title, fired seven birdies against a pair of bogeys to claim a share of the lead despite feeling ill. Nagging worries about her game have not helped either, but Kim took advantage of a three-week break in the LPGA schedule to work on her game and was pleased with the results. Park, who skipped a pro-am event Wednesday to rest her back following a successful surgery before the season, eagled the par-five 13th hole and fired five birdies against a pair of bogeys. Park, whose most recent of six LPGA crowns came in 2004, has missed the cut in three LPGA starts this season but jumped to the top of the leaderboard with birdies on her final two holes, the eighth and ninth. "When you finish the round at five-under, everything has to go pretty well," Park said. "Everything was just easy and smooth today. I started hitting my irons really close. American Stacy Lewis, who won the season's first major title earlier this month, fired a 68 to share third with Britain's Karen Stupples, one stroke ahead of American Angela Oh and South Koreans Na Yeon Choi and Se Ri Pak. Pak, the defending champion, seeks her fourth victory on the Robert Trent Jones course, having also captured the LPGA Tournament of Champions in Mobile in 2001 and 2002. "It was important to be patient out there," Pak said. "Really windy out there and greens are pretty hard to get the right distance." World No. 1 Yani Tseng of Taiwan opened with a 77. She started on the back nine and stumbled with a double-bogey seven at the 16th and a triple-bogey seven at the first hole.