Masters GC Ladies Saturday: Sakura Yokomine 67, ﾎﾟｰﾗ･ｸﾘｰﾏｰ 69

Mi-Jeong Jeon and Sakura Yokomine--the #2-ranked and #3-ranked players on the JLPGA money list this season, respectively--caught 1st-round leader Yukari Baba today in the Masters GC Ladies. Late bogeys by each of the co-leaders made Yokomine's 67, Jeon's 69, and Baba's 71 just good enough to give them a 1-shot lead on Tamie Durdin (70) and a 2-shot lead on Yuko Mitsuka (68), 2 golfers looking to keep their JLPGA cards for the 2011 season. The 3 leaders have opened up a 5-shot lead on the visiting Paula Creamer (69) and an 8-shot lead on the tour's money-list leader Sun Ju Ahn (73), but with Chie Arimura and Young Kim both in the mix, it's looking like a Sunday free-for-all on the JLPGA.

Here's where the leaders and notables stand heading into the final round:

T1/-6 Sakura Yokomine (71-67), Mi-Jeong Jeon (69-69), Yukari Baba (67-71)
4th/-5 Tamie Durdin (69-70)
T5/-4 Yuko Mitsuka (72-68), Chie Arimura (71-69), Izumi Narita (68-72)
T8/-3 Young Kim (71-70), Maiko Wakabayashi (71-70)
T10/-2 Li-Ying Ye (72-70), Jae-Hee Bae (71-71)

T12/-1 Paula Creamer (74-69), Asako Fujimoto (74-69), Ji-Hee Lee (73-70), Shinobu Moromizato (71-72), Na-Ri Lee (71-72)
T17/E Saiki Fujita (73-71), Nikki Campbell (72-72), So-Hee Kim (72-72)
T21/+1 Ayako Uehara (73-72), Mie Nakata (73-72), Miki Saiki (72-73), Yuki Ichinose (72-73), Hiromi Mogi (70-75)
T27/+2 Ah-Reum Hwang (76-70), Sun-Ju Ahn (73-73), Ritsuko Ryu (71-75)
T32/+3 Kumiko Kaneda (77-70), Mayu Hattori (76-71), Akane Iijima (74-73), Kaori Aoyama (73-74), Rikako Morita (73-74), Eun-A Lim (73-74), Chieko Amanuma (72-75), Yuri Fudoh (71-76)
T46/+5 Bo-Bae Song (77-72), Na-Ri Kim (76-73), Kyung-Min Lin (75-74)

MC: Hiromi Takesue (76-74), Hyun-Ju Shin (75-75), Ji-Woo Lee (74-76), Shiho Oyama (81-70), Erina Hara (75-76), Esther Lee (72-79), Miho Koga (77-75), Riko Higashio (76-77), Yuki Sakurai (74-79), Onnarin Sattayabanphot (74-79), Akiko Fukushima (78-76), Yun-Jye Wei (78-76), Rui Kitada (76-78), Ai-Yu Tu (81-79), Woo-Soon Ko (82-79)

Mi-Jeong Jeon has a great chance to become the JLPGA's 2nd 4-time winner this season, while Sakura Yokomine needs a win to have much of a chance to win the money-list title for the 2nd straight year. Let's see if they can take advantage of Sun-Ju Ahn's birdies drought and hold off the rest of the leaders tomorrow!