An Uncharacteristic Closing Stretch For 36-Hole Leader Sei Young Kim
Eun-Hee Ji, the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open champ, entered the day four shots back of Sei Young Kim’s lead but left the scorer’s tent Saturday with a one-shot lead over Kim and Stacy Lewis at the JTBC Founders Cup.
“Actually, my putting was really good,” Ji said. “Actually, my iron shot was really good, too, because I was really struggling with my irons the last couple of weeks but it’s getting better this week.”
Although Ji stole the lead, Stacy Lewis and Lydia Ko, the No. 1 player in the world, stole the show with 8-under-par 64s. Lewis followed up her second round 65 with a 64 Saturday and is looking for her first win since June of 2014 with nine runner-ups since her last win.
“These scores are just ridiculous,” Lewis said. “So you can’t look at a leaderboard and you just go out there and make as many birdies as you.”
Lewis actually prefers to chase on a course like this, she said. She added the hardest way to win in a shootout is to enter with the lead and see the birdie barrages going on out in front of you, but there’s precedence of her success in chasing here during her 2013 win where she entered the final round four shots back but fired a 64 to win.
“Here where the scores are just crazy low it’s hard to sleep on a lead because you know you have to go out there and shoot a number,” Lewis said. “If you’re two or three back, you know you can just go fire away because you know you gotta go shoot a 64 or 65. I think when I won here I was four back going into the final round. So in a way being a couple back allows you to free it up a little bit.”
Ko is just three shots back of the lead after a bogey-free Saturday and admitted that it was special to have LPGA Founder Marilynn Smith riding along watching her.
“It’s just what they’ve done to make my dreams come true,” Ko said. “If it wasn’t for them, who knows, I might be a chef or whatever. But it’s hard to even imagine that. So just what they’ve done to bring what the tour is and make my dreams come true and give me this opportunity to play on this awesome tour with these girls worldwide. I think we’re just so thankful to them, and it’s so great to see them out there.”
Lost in the fireworks and theatrics from Lewis and Ko was the overall up-and-down day from 36-hole leader Sei Young Kim. Kim entered the day with a two-shot lead but quickly lost it, playing the first four holes in 1-over-par. Kim quickly turned it around with birdies on three of her next six holes and then poured in a long off-the-green putt for eagle at the par-4 13th to take a four-shot lead with five holes remaining. Kim though uncharacteristically couldn’t keep her foot on the gas pedal, making surprising bogeys at 16 and 17 as Ji came up and seized the lead from her.
Nevertheless, she still sits in a prime spot heading into Sunday just one shot back of Lewis.
“I like to play and chase the lead,” Kim said. “It’s more comfortable to me. So, yeah, it’s a good position.”
WHAT THE WEEK’S ALL ABOUT
Just off the 18th green Saturday, LPGA Founders Marlene Hagge, Marilynn Smith and Shirley Spork sat, watching the action just as engaged in the game as they were when founding the LPGA Tour in 1950. On the front side of the golf course as the lead groups turned to the back nine, past legends of the game like Nancy Lopez, Betsy King, Patty Sheehan, and Pat Bradley teed it up in what was dubbed “the Hall of Fame Round.”
On the driving range, the LPGA*USGA Girls Golf program hosted a clinic with young girls from all over the Phoenix area in attendance. It was everything this event was meant to be from the start – the present honoring the past while building the future.
“Just being around [the Founders], you see the love and the energy that they have for this game still and our tour, and it’s just a really special week,” Lewis said. “I would definitely say I was one of the skeptics at first, you know, with playing for free and the whole thing, but this tournament is a home run and it’s just really cool for the rookies to get to know the Founders and the reason that they get to play every day.”
It’s why Lydia Ko, just an 18-year-old who never got to see the Founders play, had a smile across her face that seemed impossible to wipe and more than the result of her stellar play Saturday. It was about the opportunity she’s been given and the way the founders still engage with girls like her, players 60-70 years their junior.
“Since the first hole Marilynn Smith was riding out and watching me the whole 18,” Ko said. “So it’s just an honor to have somebody like her who has the Tour what it is today and made the women’s game what it is, and for her to come out and watch me the whole 18 holes, it was pretty special.”
NUMBERS TO KNOW
1 – Eun-Hee Ji has only held the 54-hole lead one time previously – 2012 Wegmans LPGA Championship where she finished in a tie for second
4 – Stacy Lewis was four shots back entering the final round of her win at the 2013 JTBC Founders Cup. She is just one-shot back entering Sunday.
9 – Stacy Lewis has nine runner-ups since her last win.
16 – There are 16 players within five shots of the lead entering the final round
41 – That’s the number of players that are double digits under par for the week
64 – Stacy Lewis, Lydia Ko, Carlota Ciganda and Alena Sharp each fired the round of the day Saturday with a 8-under-par 64
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