Chun started the day two shots clear of Park and Shanshan Feng and extended her lead to four shots after birdies on holes two, seven and eight but made a mess of the par 5 ninth before making the turn to make things interesting.
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Fellow South Korean Sung Hyun Park is four shots back on 15-under par but is still confident of closing the gap.
She had back-to-back bogeys on the second and third holes and again on the fifth and sixth in a disappointing front nine effort. A bogey at the fourth was her only error in 36 holes covered in 13 under par. I think it was because of the walk and the ground is soft after the rain.
“I tried to hit driver on Monday”, she said, “but I’m not really (feeling) comfortable because this course is really narrow and it’s not that long to me to hit driver, so no driver this week”.
The final major championship of the golfing calendar begins on Thursday with the Evian Championship, which finds two of the brightest stars in the women’s game at the head of the list of contenders. I’ve got awesome memories of winning here a year ago.
The 41-year-old Queenslander won the Evian Masters in 2006 – well before it became a major in 2013 – and has several other good finishes to her credit including a second place in 2014. “But, from the tenth, I wasn’t hitting fairways”.Chun, won last year’s U.S. Open victor, credited her commitment to her reads on the greens and her playing partners, Ariya Jutanugarn and Julia Engstrom for her strong play.
“Before the round, I felt really nervous today. but I could see the putting lines very well and I was so good rolling the ball on those lines”. “Like there’s elephants buried under every one of them”.
Chun finished eighth at the Women’s British Open at Woburn and has had top tens in the two most recent LPGA tournaments.
“With how I feel about my shot, I have no problem”, said Park.
When the nation’s Olympic medalists met China President Xi Jinping on their return home, she made quite an impression.
World No.1 Lydia Ko, of New Zealand, opened with a 70 to trail the leaders by seven.
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The record for the women is 19-under-par posted on four occasions, the men’s is 20-under-par, set by Jason Day at the 2015 PGA Championship and Henrik Stenson at the 2016 Open Championship.
