U.S. Women's Open Friday Not-Quite-Liveblogging, Take Two

If you're looking for the player most frustrated by the weather delays this week at the U.S. Women's Open, your leading contender has to be Jee Young Lee. Consider that her triple on her first hole yesterday morning (the 14th) erased all her hard work on Thursday to get to -2 and that a bogey-par finish on the vulnerable 8th and 9th this morning dropped her back to +1 after her "Friday" round was completed (T15 right now). Still, given the rate at which she's been hitting greens and making birdies--not to mention her 33 on the back yesterday--this Super Soph has to be pretty confident heading into the weekend.

Speaking of hypotheticals, we could easily have a very huge or a very tiny field for the last two rounds. Let's say leader Angela Park continues to defy gravity and ends up at some insane number like -6 (136). That means the 10-shot rule doesn't help all that many people make the cut--it would probably be around 146 anyway (right now there are only 65 players at +4 or better). On the other hand, if the co-leaders in the clubhouse In-Bee Park and Shiho Oyama turn out to be the outright leaders heading into the third round, then everyone at 152 or better is joining them (that's 124 players right now, people!). That's what's so great about golf--the possibilities are endless with half the field yet to finish their second round.

[Update 1 (7/1/07, 6:55 am): Whoops, fell asleep with the tsuma early and then my alarm clock (imoto) didn't get me up till 6:20. Did see Ai Miyazato's and Sakura Yokomine play the 9th and a recap of Yokomine's round. The former started shaky but held on to shoot another 73; the latter had a good start and eagled 1, but had a shaky finish for a 72. Checking the USGA website now, I'm guessing the course is playing easier. A lot more sub-par scores, most notably Catriona Matthew's 67 and the 69s by Angela Park, Julieta Granada, Ji Yai Shin, and Amy Hung. Park's 33 on her back 9 (the front) meant that we had a smaller field rather than a huge one. Missing the cut were Suzann Pettersen and Juli Inkster at +7, Maria Hjorth, Liselotte Neumann, and Wendy Ward at +8, Stacy Prammanasudh and Stacy Lewis at +9, Sarah Lee at +10, and Karrie Webb and Meaghan Francella at +12. Saw Wie WDed--guess Brittany Lang gets to claim she beat her. Back with more after the Japanese tv coverage ends.]