Despite playing through some back pain during Friday’s round, Lexi Thompson holds the second-round lead of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give. Thompson was 10-under par through her first ten holes, struggling a bit down the stretch picking up two bogeys in the final four holes, but recovered nicely going birdie, birdie on the final two hole of the day.
“Yeah, it was definitely important to come back from the two bogeys,” Thompson explained. “I just hit a few errant drives there towards the end and made bogeys, but I played 17 and 18 well. I got pretty lucky on 18, I will say that.”
What a difference a day makes, wet and cold on day one and warm and dry on Friday, but both proved to be ideal for scoring.
“Yeah, it was just a little firmer out there today and a lot different conditions," described Thompson. "It was overcast most of the day yesterday, so shots were going a little bit further today. I played in the morning also yesterday, so it was a lot different.”
Alena Sharp has never finished better than fifth on the LPGA Tour, which came at the 2015 Blue Bay LPGA, but sits one back of the lead with Q Baek, In Gee Chun and So Yeon Ryu. Sharp was 9-under par through 13 holes and add one more birdie at the back nine’s par 5, 14th hole, to share the lead with Thompson, but faltered on 18 to drop a shot and finish the day at 4-under par, 67.
“Yeah, you know, I got my bogey out of the way," Sharp recalled. "I've had one this week, and it was on that hole. Now I don't have to think about it tomorrow. That's the way I'm looking at it. It just rode the wind too much, and I got behind a tree, and that happens out here, so I'm not really going to look too much into it and just look at the overall day was a good day and move on to tomorrow. “