Meechai leads Females’s Open; Korda misses decrease

LANCASTER, Pa. — Wichanee Meechai grew to turn into essentially the most up-to-date surprise in a U.S. Females’s Open crammed with them. She started Friday with four straight birdies and matched the low gain of the week with a 3-below 67 for a two-shot lead going correct into a weekend that would additionally no longer encompass Nelly Korda.

Meechai, a 31-year-faded from Thailand, had never performed within the slay 10 in her 20 outdated appearances within the majors. Her simplest victory identified by the ladies’s world ranking was 9 years within the past on the Taiwan LPGA.

She went from five pictures ahead of Andrea Lee to two pictures within the lend a hand of in a span of 5 holes. Meechai steadied herself with two birdies over the final six holes to scheme at 4-below 136, two pictures in entrance of Lee with simplest two diversified gamers below par.

A pair of outdated Females’s Open champions, Minjee Lee (69) and Yuka Saso (71) were three pictures lend a hand at Lancaster Nation Membership.

“I if truth be told feel like I could per chance possibly well no longer be making loads of birdies on the simpler packages. I’m no longer that individual,” Meechai acknowledged in making an are trying to level her 36-hole lead in a main. “I like must you wish have loads, must you wish land it shorter and be affected person.”

That labored to perfection on her opening four holes, all birdie putts internal 6 toes.

“I fine picked the membership that’s shorter and hit it hard,” she acknowledged.

The week started with a surprise announcement by Lexi Thompson that she’s going to retire from a full schedule on the slay of the year. Her 18th and possibly closing U.S. Females’s Open ended early with rounds of 78-75.

This can slay with Korda lend a hand house in Florida, missing the decrease for the main time in almost a year.

Korda bought a runt measure of revenge on the par-3 12th, where on Thursday she hit into the water three conditions and made a occupation-worst 10 on her come to an 80. This time the pin was to the lend a hand, no longer the entrance. She came up so short with a tubby 8-iron that it appeared her golf ball would roll lend a hand into the water.

It was held up by a patch of grass. She jabbed a pitch to twenty toes and holed the par putt, smiled and supplied a sportive expletive on the green.

“I desired to assemble a birdie to gain my revenge on that hole, but par will hang,” she acknowledged.

Korda, who came into the Females’s Open having won six of her final seven tournaments, ran off three straight birdies in the direction of the slay of the entrance 9 to gain in differ of the decrease.

But she did not hit the ball prosperous the tee, or from the green when given the probability. She had simplest four seems at birdie on the lend a hand 9, shot 70 and missed the decrease by two.

“After I made these three birdies in a row, I desired to assemble the decrease,” Korda acknowledged. “I knew that I was invent of hovering spherical it, and I fine might per chance possibly possibly not gain something happening the lend a hand.”

Also missing the decrease were Rose Zhang, Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson and defending Females’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz.

Amongst these sticking spherical was 15-year-faded Asterisk Talley — her first name is Greek for “runt necessary individual” — who had 15 pars in her spherical of 71 and was in a neighborhood at 1-over 141 that incorporated U.S. Females’s Amateur champion Megan Schofill.

Lee delivered a stretch necessary extra impressive than Meechai, hers coming within the course of the spherical. The Stanford alum was on the ropes and in a bunker on No. 1 — her Tenth hole of the spherical — when her shot rolled fine to a lend a hand pin and dropped for eagle.

Lee adopted with three straight birdies, and right this moment was two certain of Meechai within the neighborhood within the lend a hand of her. Lee three-putted from 30 toes for bogey on No. 5, and failed to construct par from a bunker on the par-3 eighth.

She’s going to seemingly be within the final neighborhood Saturday, with Minjee Lee and Saso ahead of them and with a ways extra trip in going through this form of stern test.

Minjee Lee, whose two majors encompass a Females’s Open at Pine Needles two years within the past, made consecutive bogeys on the flip and then performed mistake-free the relaxation of the come. Saso, the Females’s Open champion at Olympic Membership in 2021, steadied herself from a rocky launch by playing bogey-free over her final 12 holes.

Most telling was Saso being requested to command her simplest shot and Lee requested relating to the one shot she would favor to enjoy lend a hand. Every needed to flip in the direction of a scoring terminal displaying their scorecards, needing to jog their recollections relating to the rounds they had fine executed.

That is the invent of golf a Females’s Open, namely on a faded course like Lancaster, can generate. Or no longer it’s about grinding, getting to the next hole and no longer doing something to extinguish a spherical.

After which there’s Meechai, delightfully self-deprecating about how she approaches this test.

“I’m the one who has no confidence at all,” she acknowledged. “I take into fable missing the decrease which ability that of I know that I’m able to shoot like 1 below and next day 8 over. Or no longer it’s so easy for me. Trying now to not take into fable it’s the toughest portion for me so that’s why I’m so apprehensive.”

Two diversified amateurs were among the 75 gamers to assemble the decrease at 8-over 148. Undoubtedly one of them was Adela Cernousek of France, a junior at Texas A&M who won the NCAA title two weeks within the past. She opened with a 69 and was on the verge of taking pictures 80 and missing the decrease till her chip smacked into the pin on her closing hole and settled 2 toes away for par rather than rolling off the entrance of the green lend a hand into the green.