Na Zhang followed up yesterday's sizzling 68 with a solid 72 at the World Ladies Championship Salonpas Cup Friday, but she left the door open for some of the biggest names on the JLPGA to make up some ground on her. Sakura Yokomine's 69 was the best of the bunch, pulling her within 2 shots of the leader, but Akiko Fukushima's 70 put her alone at 2nd. Other 70s by Bo-Bae Song (E, T5 thus far), Shinobu Moromizato (+1, T10 with Ji-Yai Shin and Mi-Jeong Jeon), and Chie Arimura (+3, T19) put them within sight or shouting distance of the lead.
Still, most of the other top players among those in the morning groups fell further behind Zhang on Friday. Jeon's 74 and Shiho Ohyama's 73 (+2, T16 so far) did the least damage. At the other end of the spectrum were Miho Koga's birdie-free 79 (+4, T24), Miki Saiki's 75 and Se Ri Pak's 74 (+5, T31), Hyun-Ju Shin's 77 and Midori Yoneyama's 76 (+7, T47), Yuri Fudoh's 75 and Hiromi Mogi's 74 (+8, T55), and Akane Iijima's 77, Bettina Hauert's 81, and Yui Kawahara's 84 (which definitely dropped them below the cut line).
Plus, with many top players and Thursday leaders in the afternoon groups off to horrible starts (among them Ji-Hee Lee, Yuka Shiroto, Hiroko Yamaguchi, and Kaori Higo), Zhang has a great chance to turn the tournament into a 2- or 3-player race with a strong moving day tomorrow. On the other hand, there are about a dozen players still on the course who have a chance of joining the 4 players currently under par (the surprising Yuki Ichinose needs a par on the final hole for a 70, which would put her at -1 at the halfway point in the JLPGA's first major). More later!
[Update (8:14 am): Yukari Baba, another recent winner on the JLPGA, and Ichinose ended up bringing the total number of players under par to 5--both stand 3 shots behind Zhang heading into the weekend. Yuko Mitsuka joined Song at E (T6), and Michiko Hattori and Rui Kitada joined the big names at +1 (T8), but the rest of the field fell further behind. Ji-Hee Lee fell back into a tie with Arimura at +3 (T17), Erina Hara into a tie with Koga at +4 (T21), Yun-Jye Wei to +6 (T34), and Yamaguchi and Higo below the cut line (which Fudoh and Mogi ended up making on the dot).]
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