Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open Weekend: Can Fudoh Seal the Deal?

Yuri Fudoh followed up her opening 66 with a 67 yesterday to take a 3-shot lead on Rikako Morita and Na-Ri Kim into today's round at the Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open. Through the 1st 2/3 of the day thus far, she's played bogey-free golf and extended her lead on them to 4, but they've been passed by 4 players going low so far: Chie Arimura, Young Kim, Rui Kitada, and Saiki Fujita. Kitada's -5 today with 4 holes to go, while the rest are -4 with 5 to go. They'll need to make some birdies down the home stretch to put some pressure on the JLPGA's Billion-Yen Woman, who's 3-up on the lead chase pack with 6 holes left to play. Can Fudoh log her 1st JLPGA victory since 2008 today? Stay tuned!

[Update 1 (3:49 am): Here's where everyone stood heading into today's round:

1st/-11 Yuri Fudoh (66-67)
T2/-8 Na-Ri Kim (68-68), Rikako Morita (65-71)
T4/-6 Saori Ikushima (70-68), Mi-Jeong Jeon (66-72), Asako Fujimoto (66-72)
T7/-5 Young Kim (73-66), Chie Arimura (71-68), Saiki Fujita (69-70)
T10/-4 Kumiko Kaneda (71-69), Rui Kitada (68-72)

T12/-3 Sakura Yokomine (71-70), Ayako Uehara (70-71), Yukari Baba (70-71), Yun-Jye Wei (70-71), Tamie Durdin (67-74), Miki Saiki (67-74)
T19/-2 Na-Ri Lee (72-70), Hiromi Mogi (71-71), Bo-Bae Song (68-74)
T24/-1 Akane Iijima (74-69), Shinobu Moromizato (73-70), Miho Koga (71-72)
T29/E Ji-Woo Lee (75-69), Ritsuko Ryu (74-70), So-Hee Kim (72-72)
T44/+1 Li-Ying Ye (74-71), Sun-Ju Ahn (73-72), Kaori Aoyama (73-72)

MC Esther Lee (76-70), Eun-A Lim (72-74), Ji-Hee Lee (76-72), Erina Hara (76-72), Mayu Hattori (71-77), Yuki Ichinose (72-78), Jae-Hee Bae (75-74), Maiko Wakabayashi (75-76), Ai-Yu Tu (78-78)
WD Hyun-Ju Shin (74-WD), Yuko Saitoh (74-WD)

Wow, Ahn just squeaked by the cut line--exactly 50 made it to today's round!]

[Update 1 (4:01 am): And here's where everyone stood coming out of it:

1st/-13 Yuri Fudoh (66-67-70)
2nd/-11 Na-Ri Kim (68-68-69)
3rd/-10 Saiki Fujita (69-70-67)
T4/-9 Rui Kitada (68-72-67), Young Kim (73-66-68)
6th/-8 Chie Arimura (71-68-69)
T7/-7 Shinobu Moromizato (73-70-66), Saori Ikushima (70-68-71), Rikako Morita (65-71-73)
10th/-6 Ayako Uehara (70-71-69)

T11/-5 Sakura Yokomine (71-70-70), Yukari Baba (70-71-70), Tamie Durdin (67-74-70), Miki Saiki (67-74-70), Mi-Jeong Jeon (66-72-73), Asako Fujimoto (66-72-73)
T18/-4 Akane Iijima (74-69-69), Yun-Jye Wei (70-71-71)
T22/-3 So-Hee Kim (72-72-69), Miho Koga (71-72-70), Na-Ri Lee (72-70-71), Hiromi Mogi (71-71-70), Kumiko Kaneda (71-69-73)
T27/-2 Sun-Ju Ahn (73-72-69), Kaori Aoyama (73-72-69)
T32/E Li-Ying Ye (74-71-71), Bo-Bae Song (68-74-74)
T34/+1 Ritsuko Ryu (74-70-73)
T48/+5 Ji-Woo Lee (75-69-77)

Great win for Fudoh and great runner-up for Kim, who decided to strike out for the JLPGA this season rather than try to get back to the LPGA via the Futures Tour!]

[Update 3 (4:14 am): Here's how the money list now stands:

1. Sakura Yokomine ￥39.74M
2. Inbee Park ￥36.50M
3. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥31.53M
4. Chie Arimura ￥29.31M
5. Rui Kitada ￥26.56M
6. Ji-Yai Shin ￥25.76M
7. Yuri Fudoh ￥25.69M
8. Miho Koga ￥25.25M
9. Mayu Hattori ￥21.87M
10. Yun-Jye Wei ￥19.24M
11. Mie Nakata ￥17.16M
12. Asako Fujimoto ￥16.72M
13. Nikki Campbell ￥15.89M
14. Hiromi Mogi ￥15.45M
15. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥14.76M
16. Shinobu Moromizato ￥14.67M
17. Young Kim ￥13.98M
18. Akane Iijima ￥13.50M
19. Ji-Hee Lee ￥12.99M
20. Bo-Bae Song ￥12.98M
21. Saiki Fujita ￥12.84M
22. Yukari Baba ￥12.47M
23. Kaori Aoyama ￥12.11M
24. Hyun-Ju Shin ￥11.38M
25. Na-Ri Kim ￥11.12M
26. Tamie Durdin ￥11.04M
27. Chieko Amanuma ￥10.88M
28. Esther Lee ￥10.50M
29. Ayako Uehara ￥10.30M
30. Ah-Reum Hwang ￥10.03M

The season is still young, but wouldn't it be cool if Fudoh continued to play well?]