Between Ko and Park are first-round leader Mirim Lee, who followed up an impressive opening 64 with an unsteady 74, and Amy Yang, who was a runner-up in this championship a year ago at Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club. What’s more, six of the top seven scores were posted by morning tee times as the course played two shots more hard in the afternoon.
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The character of the second round Friday was similar.
Cappelen shot a 6-under 66 for the second day.
Ko is tied for the fewest putts through three rounds. The world No. 1 only needed 25 putts to get around the Robert Trent Jones Jr. -designed course.
Lee, who followed a first-round 64 with a 74 on Friday, continued to struggle and lost three more strokes to par on the front nine to drop to 3-under for the tournament and tied for seventh.
Japan’s Haru Nomura fired a 3-under-69 to surge into a tie with Ko in fourth for a 139 two-day total.
So what kind of golf course is this, what kind of championship is this, who do you trust? We’re about to find out.
Neither player knew of the penalty when they headed to the tee for the third play-off hole at the par-five 18th, with Nordqvist only learning her fate after she had already played her third shot. Rest assured, the victor of this 71st edition will not be over par.
Yang, tied for second, has had two unusual days. “Hopefully today was my bad round of the week, and I can go out there and put in some red numbers and hopefully represent San Jose”.
Lydia Ko, the leader at the 71st U.S. Women’s Open, was asked about her routine the night before a final round.
“Oh, I party all night”, Ko answered with a straight face. “I was walking a little bit and then I saw the ball drop, so it kind of took me by surprise”.
Ko has been atop the Rolex Rankings for 36 consecutive weeks. She has accumulated almost $5.5 million in earnings in her 11 years on tour, and she’s made the Solheim Cup team four times.
For her part, Ko confirmed Lang’s suspicions.
But with a new shaft on her driver, Kerr found her game in the opening round. Her best finish was a T12 at Lancaster Country Club a year ago. She recorded four bogies to match four birdies for the round. Just a freshman at the time this past year, Hack was arguably UK’s best golfer down the stretch of the season, posting two top-25 finishes in two of her last three tournaments.
A race to stay off the clock for slow play after that didn’t help her, either.
“I feel really great being in contention”.
Perhaps no one pines for this championship more than Yang.
Park, a 22-year-old from South Korea, made her LPGA debut last year when she finished second at the KEB-HanaBank Championship in South Korea.
“No matter what position I’m in, always to finish with a birdie on the last hole is a lot of good memories”, she said.
Ko’s one under for the day through 16 holes, six under for the tournament alongside Korea’s Amy Yang and Sung Hyun Park. That’s a lifetime’s worth of ups and downs in one afternoon. “I did that, so I knew it was going to be a good day”. “And it was tough to get near the pins on some holes”. Perhaps that bodes well for a ghost-busting weekend.
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No. 4 ranked Lexi Thompson, who also played with Ko and Henderson, also stands at 3 over and also could miss the cut.
