The 22-year-old shared the first-round lead on 63 with compatriot Park Sung Hyun, but she moved two clear of the pack with a six-birdie round.
Advertisement
One shot behind the Koreans were Olympic bronze medalist Shanshan Feng of China and American rookie Annie Park.
So Yeon Ryu (69) heads into the final day on 12 under, while In-Kyung Kim vaulted into fifth place on 11 under after she returned a sparkling 64 – the joint-low round of the third day. “I think I made a really good second shot, and then third shot – because I tried really good to visualize my third shot”.
Ko and Ariya Jutanugarn of Thailand rank one and two, respectively, in the world rankings as well as the battle for the Rolex Player of the Year Award. “It’s a tough course with narrow fairways, but I drove it well”.
“I just seemed to hit a lot of good wedge shots today and hit a lot of good putts, ” said Johnston, coming off a 28th-place tie last week in OH in the DAP Championship. Sauers, Parry and Blake shot 68 at Pebble Beach, and Sutherland and Pernice shot 67 at Poppy Hills. She celebrated her 19th birthday on Saturday and is hoping for the ideal present – a second major.
Park has won five times on the Korean LPGA tour this year and has yet to make the move to America.
Charley Hull, who played alongside Matthew for Team GB at the Olympics, looked set to finish high on the leaderboard when she covered the first 15 holes in four under par.
“When I landed in Guangzhou it was surprising kind of because there were more than 100 people waiting for me, and that made me feel like I was a star”, she said.
Ladies European Tour Order of Merit leader Beth Allen got off to a bad start with a quadruple-bogey eight at the first and eventually finished six over, while nearest rival in the rankings Catriona Matthew shot a 73 to leave the Scot two over.
Eighth in the British Open in July, Johnston had 10 birdies and two bogeys to reach 13-under 129 at Hillcrest in the second of four Web.com Tour Finals events. He’s one shot ahead of Masters champion and fellow Englishman Danny Willett.
Advertisement
Rory Sabbatini Ryan Brehm, Brett Drewitt and Hiroshi Iwata shot 65, and Stuart Appleby, Scott Stallings, Andrew Johnston, Ollie Schniederjans, Trey Mullinax, Xander Schauffele, Julian Etulain, Matt Jones, Rob Oppenheim and Luke Guthrie were at 66.
