Promise Ladies Saturday: Lee and Mitsuka Make Up Ground on Moromizato

Moving day at the Promise Ladies saw many big moves, but none was bigger than Yuko Mitsuka's finish over her last 6 holes in which she made 5 birdies, posting a 67 to get to solo 4th and pull within striking distance of the leader, Shinobu Moromizato, who broke her 35-hole bogey-free run on the final hole to drop back to -10 for the tournament. Ji-Hee Lee, playing with Moromizato, made up 2 big shots on her with a bogey-free 68 (her only bogey in the tournament came on the 18th yesterday), while Junko Omote made up 3 shots. Others saw strong play sabotaged by late struggles. Sakura Yokomine fired a 32 on the front to move to -6, but parred out after bogeying the 10th, Miho Koga made 6 birdies in her middle 9 holes, but also bogeyed the 10th and 18th, and Mi-Jeong Jeon doubled her last hole to drop back to -5. On the flip side, Chie Arimura made 5 birdies in her last 10 holes to pull within 1 of them, while Hiromi Mogi made 4 in her last 7 to ensure she made the cut.

Here's how they stand heading into the final round:

1st/-10 Shinobu Moromizato (64-70)
2nd/-9 Ji-Hee Lee (67-68)
3rd/-8 Yui Kawahara (66-70)
4th/-7 Yuko Mitsuka (70-67)
5th/-6 Junko Omote (71-67)
T6/-5 Eun-A Lim (71-68), Aoi Nagata (71-68), Sakura Yokomine (70-69), Miho Koga (70-69), Rui Kitada (70-69), Mi-Jeong Jeon (69-70), Ai Nishikawa (69-70)

T13/-4 Chie Arimura (72-68), Saiki Fujita (71-69), Miki Saiki (69-71)
T17/-3 Rikako Morita (71-70), Tamie Durdin (70-71)
T23/-2 Li-Ying Ye (72-70), Mie Nakata (72-70), Yuri Fudoh (71-71), Ji-Woo Lee (70-72)
T34/-1 Yuko Saitoh (73-70), Erina Hara (71-72), Mayu Hattori (71-72)
T41/E Hiromi Mogi (76-68), Akiko Fukushima (73-71), Sakurako Mori (72-72)
T45/+1 Akane Iijima (72-73), Yun-Jye Wei (67-78)
T50/+2 Yukari Baba (74-72), Kumiko Kameda (70-76)

58 players made the cut, but not the following notables:

T66/+4 Ah-Reum Hwang (74-74)
T74/+5 Julie Lu (75-74), Nikki Campbell (73-76), Yuki Ichinose (70-79)
T79/+6 Mai Arai (79-71), Maiko Wakabayashi (77-73), Ai-Yu Tu (74-76)
T92/+8 Esther Lee (78-74)
WD Midori Yoneyama (75-WD)

With 12 players within 5 shots of the leader, this promises to be a barnburner tomorrow!