Saturday, October 18, 2014

Fujitsu Ladies Saturday: Sun-Ju Ahn Leads Erika Kikuchi by 1, Sakura Yokomine by 2

Sun-Ju Ahn continued her fine play at the Fujitsu Ladies on moving day with a 5-birdie 69, but another walkoff bogey dropped her back to -11, which opened the door for a persistent Erika Kikuchi, whose bogey-free 33 on the back pulled her within 1 stroke of the lead, and Sakura Yokomine, who's had a quiet 2014 but who fired a bogey-free 65 to move to -9.  With Onnarin Sattayabanphot eagling the par-5 10th to move to -8, Mami Fukuda birdieing 4 of her last 5 holes to get to -7, and Mihoko Iseri firing her 2nd-straight 69, there are a few players who can deny Ahn her 18th career JLPGA victory tomorrow.

But Teresa Lu and Phoebe Yao at -5, Miki Sakai and Soo-Yun Kang at -4, Misuzu Narita and Yumiko Yoshida at -3, Rikako Morita and Erina Hara at -2, Shiho Oyama and Ai Suzuki at -1, and Ai Miyazato and Ji-Hee Lee at E will need to play out of their heads tomorrow (and probably get a little help from the leaders) to pull into contention.  Defending champion Na-Ri Lee and Mika Miyazato were among those who made the cut by the skin of their teeth, while the likes of Miki Saiki, Yuko Mitsuka, Esther Lee, Natsuka Hori, Mayu Hattori, Mamiko Higa, Kumiko Kaneda, and Maiko Wakabayashi ended their weeks on frustrating notes.

I'm rooting for a final-round showdown between 2 former money-list title-holders tomorrow.  I'd love to see Ahn and Yokomine play like their capable of!

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