Women's British Open Saturday: Tseng on Cruise Control

Yani Tseng shot a bogey free 68 to maintain her four shot lead. Katherine Hull, who made birdies on her last five holes, is in solo second at minus eight. The next closest golfers are In-Kyung Kim at minus six, and Brittany Lincicome at minus five.

Morgan Pressel made noise early on Saturday. After making bogey on the first two holes, Pressel rattled off 8 birdies and one eagle only offset by one bogey. Her 65 equaled the course record, a mark held by all the extras required for the movie Ben Hur six participants in the 2005 Women's British Open.

Tseng looked almost flawless today. The only wayward shot I remember Tseng hitting was her second on the par five 17 where she got a lucky bounce back into the fairway. Still could only make par on hole. Tseng made up for it by making an eagle on 18.

At the moment Tseng is one round away from her third major championship. Yani has never won a tournament from the lead during her short LPGA career. Hound Dog wrote:

If today's results were any indication, it would have to be blowing a hurricane to knock Yani Tseng off her perch. She's not known as a front-runner but she's definitely known as a major champion. I expect her to get her third one tomorrow.

I will be greatly surprised if Tseng isn't hoisting the trophy when play is finished tomorrow. The Constructivist will have more thoughts on the third round later today.

[Update 1 (11:31 pm): TC here. I got to watch an hour plus this morning before heading over to Syracuse for the 2nd round of the Futures Tour event. If I can get up early enough tomorrow, I'll catch the last hour I missed on Friday and the rest of Saturday's round before I head back. But that means that I'll be holding off on observations on each round until tomorrow evening. Like Bill and Hound Dog, I think Ya Ni is playing too well to get caught tomorrow, but Ryan Ballengee (who also thinks Tseng will win) made a good point that Hull has caught Tseng before, at the '08 Canadian Open. Given the way Shin, Kerr, and Pettersen struggled when they had chances to make moves on Tseng, maybe it will take someone who doesn't have to worry about the race for #1 in the Rolex Rankings to chase Tseng down. But Hull will have to put together a great final round. I just don't see Ya Ni coming back to the field in any significant way.]

[Update 2 (11:52 pm): Here are LPGA.com's notes and interviews. And check out how cool the final-round pairings are! Early on Sakura Yokomine gets to play with Stacy Lewis, Ai Miyazato with Karrie Webb, Azahara Munoz with Michelle Wie, and Chie Arimura with Amy Yang. And then:

Start Time: 12:55 PM--Top 2 Seoul Sisters right now
Ji-Yai Shin
Na Yeon Choi

Start Time: 1:05 PM--USA! USA!
Morgan Pressel
Cristie Kerr

Start Time: 1:15 PM--Solheim Cup rematch
Suzann Pettersen
Christina Kim

Start Time: 1:25 PM--Pinx/Kyoraku Cup rematch
Momoko Ueda
Hee Kyung Seo

Start Time: 1:35 PM--Bomber vs. precision player
Brittany Lincicome
In-Kyung Kim

Start Time: 1:45 PM--'08 Canadian Women's Open rematch
Katherine Hull
Ya Ni Tseng

Shweeeet!]

[Update 3 (8/1/10, 11:24 pm): Entertaining remarks on the 3rd round by Mike Southern.]