“Now they get to see us and see how great the Chinese players are”.
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It was a boon to just be “in the Olympic Summer Games where you get audiences that golf doesn’t necessarily get all the time”, she added.
“Luckily, I had an uphill lie”, she said.
Following on from the dramatic showdown between Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson in the men’s event last weekend, Park’s serene path to victory was fitting of a fantastic four days of Golf put on by players from the Ladies European and LPGA Tours.
Starting with that pitch to tap-in range, she birdied two straight holes and shot a 1-under 70 to take a two-shot lead into the final round.
Now comes the real test.
Friday, it was Lydia Ko’s turn to notch an ace as she moved to within touching distance of South Korea’s Inbee Park at the top of the leaderboard in the women’s individual strokeplay golf event at Rio 2016. The 19-year-old Kiwi made all pars on the back nine when the wind arrived and shot 65. “It is a huge honor”, said Ko.
“Coming into this week, I knew we would be televised all over the world”. But Park had not played in an LPGA event since the KPMG PGA in early June, where she missed the cut. Piller’s signature moment was making the winning putt for the United States in the Solheim Cup previous year in Germany.
“I was a little bit mad after the double on 14 and got my focus back instead of going the other way”, she said. “I think that’s going to do me a lot of good”.
In the other quarterfinals, Oklahoma sophomore Brad Dalke of Norman, Oklahoma, beat former Stanford player David Boote of Wales 3 and 2, and Southern California junior Jonah Texeira of Porter Ranch, California, topped LSU sophomore Luis Gagne of Orlando, Florida, 3 and 2.
Guan Tianlang, who is also from Guangzhou and who Feng said played on the same junior teams as her although she’s several years older, competed in the 2013 Masters after winning the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship run by Augusta National. On the par-3 14th, her hybrid went well over the green into more trouble, and she lost her lead. She finished tied for 25th at one-under. I am just so happy to be standing on the highest spot on the podium.
Park could not match her blistering form on Wednesday and Thursday, when she carded back-to-back rounds of 66. “I played pretty decent”.
Piller was four under after the front nine but a birdie at the sixteenth was sandwiched between bogeys on the 12th and 18th holes. Now she has the first gold medal awarded in women’s golf since 1900.
Instead, she hit one of her best shots with a 7-iron to advance it down the fairway, and then did even better with a hybrid from 199 yards to 4 feet for her 63. Ko was stunned to hear the cheering when it dropped in.
In addition to putts going in, getting mad seems to work for Lewis, too.
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‘The thing you notice about the Asians, though, is their professionalism, and perhaps that’s something for Charley to look at’.
