Austin Ernst was less than an hour from her third round tee time in the last group of the day and just starting to work through her pre-round warmup when play was suspended due to lightning in the area at 11:56 AM Saturday. Ultimately, a five hour and three minute delay ensued, and Ernst had to restart her routine.
The lead group of Ernst, Yani Tseng and Lexi Thompson eventually only got to the fifth green before play was suspended again due to darkness with Ernst erasing Tseng’s one shot lead entering the day to take a one-shot lead when play was halted. The third round is set to resume at 7:30 AM CST with all 75 players that made the cut still on the golf course.
“You know, we were sitting around, hanging around,” Ernst said. “I’ve got two of my aunts are here, my mom’s here, and we’ve got a couple family friends so we were just kind of sitting around talking, basically just waiting to see what the deal would be. I was glad we did get a few holes in, that way we should be able to finish tomorrow so that will be good.”
To maintain her lead, though, Ernst will have to putt out at the fifth and then play 31 more holes Sunday. Players will not be re-paired when third round play is concluded and Tseng, Ernst, and Thompson will tee off in the final round at 11:32 AM Sunday after they wrap up the third round.
“It’s going to be a marathon,” Ernst said. “There’s a lot of golf left. It will basically just be get as many birdies as I can. I know the scores are still going to be low. It’s just going to be more continuous golf than usual. We’ll finish that third round up and then probably get a little lunch break and go right back out there. It will be good, kind of be able to get into a little bit of a groove early hopefully and then just kind of carry that on throughout the day.”
Ernst at 10-under-par will have a host of challengers when play continues Sunday. Tseng, who is looking for her first win since 2013, remains just one shot back at 9-under-par after making bogey at the fourth hole Saturday. Five other players - Sei Young Kim, Tiffany Joh, Sydnee Michaels, Julieta Granada, and Thompson - are all within two shots of Ernst’s lead.
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