Japan Women's Open Saturday: Shanshan Feng and Megumi Kido Hold Onto Slim Lead

Scores continue to creep higher at the Japan Women's Open.  With 1st- and 2nd-round leader Shanshan Feng enduring a birdie-less 74 to drop to +1, we now not only have no players under par through 54 holes, we now have no players at par, either!

That's not to say that several golfers didn't move up the leaderboard in a big way on moving day.  Ah-Reum Hwang fired a 5-birdie 68 to move within 4 shots of Feng and her co-leader Megumi Kido.  Ai Miyazato finished birdie-birdie to match 70s by Inbee Park, Na Yeon Choi, Yuri Fudoh, Rui Kitada, and Hiromi Takesue that brought all of them within that magic "5 shots of the lead" margin that gives them a shot at victory tomorrow.  And we saw a passel of 71s from such top JLPGAers as money-list leader Mi-Jeong Jeon, her closest pursuer in the field Chie Arimura, Ji-Hee Lee, Sakura Yokomine, Soo-Yun Kang, Miki Saiki, and Hiromi Mogi.  With dark horse Ayako Uehara only 1 back, 2010 champion Mika Miyazato lurking 3 off the pace, and the LPGA's Jeong Jang right in the mix at +5, just about anything can happen tomorrow.

Here's how everyone stood once the smoke settled:

+1 Megumi Kido (70-74-73), Shanshan Feng (68-75-74)
+2 Ayako Uehara (72-74-72)
+3 Inbee Park (73-76-70), Ai Miyazato (72-77-70)
+4 Rui Kitada (77-73-70), Yuri Fudoh (71-79-70), Mika Miyazato (72-75-73)
+5 Ah-Reum Hwang (76-77-68), Hiromi Mogi (75-75-71), Ji-Hee Lee (73-76-71), Jeong Jang (74-73-74), Teresa Lu (72-74-75), Na-Ri Kim (70-75-76)
+6 Hiromi Takesue (78-74-71), Chie Arimura (76-75-71), Mi-Jeong Jeon (74-77-71), Soo-Yun Kang (71-80-71), Onnarin Sattayabanphot (74-76-72), Miki Sakai (73-77-72)
+7 Na Yeon Choi (77-76-70), Akane Iijima (75-77-71), Miki Saiki (74-78-71), Na-Ri Lee (74-75-74), In-Kyung Kim (74-74-75)
+8 Young Kim (75-76-73)
+9 Sakura Yokomine (79-75-71), Ya Ni Tseng (73-75-77), Maiko Wakabayashi (75-72-78)
+10 Momoko Ueda (72-81-73)
+11 Ji-Yai Shin (81-74-72), Hyun-Ju Shin (77-77-73), Mayu Hattori (76-77-74), Kumiko Kaneda (74-79-74)
+12 Bo-Bae Song (75-77-76), Maria Iida (78-73-77)
+13 Erina Hara (73-79-77), Rikako Morita (72-75-82)
+14 Shinobu Moromizato (78-76-76)

With 20 players within 5 shots of the lead, tomorrow should be a very tense and  volatile day!  Stay tuned!