Cyber Agent Ladies Friday: Mihoko Iseri Matches Career Low Round, Takes Lead

Before today, 25-year-old Mihoko Iseri had broken 75 only twice in 7 rounds on the JLPGA this year. Her best finish in a tournament in her 5-year JLPGA career was 7th, way back in 2007, the only year she finished high enough on the money list not to have to return to Q-School. Last season, she broke 70 only 4 times in 54 rounds, bringing her total to 12. So of course she went out today in Chiba at the Cyber Agent Ladies and matched her career low of 66 (set back in 2008), taking a 1-shot lead on Yukari Baba and Hiromi Mogi, a 2-shot lead on Ji-Yai Shin and Ji Na Lim, and a 3-shot lead on Saiki Fujita and Ritsuko Ryu. With big names from both the JLPGA and KLPGA like Sakura Yokomine, Mi-Jeong Jeon, Ji-Hee Lee, Bo-Mee Lee, Yuri Fudoh, Momoko Ueda, and He-Yong Choi at par or better, Iseri had better keep the pedal to the metal tomorrow.

Here how the leaders and notables stood after 18 holes:

1st/-6 Mihoko Iseri (66)
T2/-5 Yukari Baba, Hiromi Mogi (67)
T4/-4 Ji-Yai Shin, Ji Na Lim (68)
T6/-3 Saiki Fujita, Ritsuko Ryu (69)
T8/-2 Sakura Yokomine, Mi-Jeong Jeon, Tamie Durdin, Mie Nakata, Mayu Hattori, Na-Ri Kim, Na-Ri Lee, Yuki Ichinose, Kaori Ohe, Chieko Amanuma, Lala Anai (70)

T19/-1 Ji-Hee Lee, Bo-Mee Lee, Akane Iijima, Kumiko Kaneda (71)
T24/E Yuri Fudoh, Momoko Ueda, He-Yong Choi, Miki Saiki, Soo-Yun Kang, Ji-Woo Lee (72)
T31/+1 Chie Arimura, Miho Koga, Ayako Uehara, Meena Lee, Erina Hara, Jae-Hee Bae, Julie Lu, Miki Sakai (73)
T47/+2 Rui Kitada, Nikki Campbell, Asako Fujimoto, So-Hee Kim, Sakurako Mori, Riko Higashio (74)
T60/+3 Akiko Fukushima, Shinobu Moromizato, Hyun-Ju Shin, Maiko Wakabayashi, Ah-Reum Hwang, Megumi Kido (75)
T72/+4 Yuko Mitsuka, Kaori Aoyama, Yun-Jye Wei, Esther Lee (76)
T82/+5 Yuki Sakurai, Rui Yokomine, Onnarin Sattayabanphot, Pei-Ying Tsai (77)
T92/+6 Teresa Lu, Rikako Morita, Miki Uehara (78)
T99/+7 Li-Ying Ye (79)

Iseri bogeyed her 1st hole of the day, the 10th, but bounced back with 7 birdies and no other bogeys the rest of her round, including a 5-birdie 32 on the back. Mogi matched Iseri's birdie total but took 1 more bogey for the day, while Baba was the only player besides Yokomine and Ichinose to play bogey-free golf all day. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the field responds to the absence of Sun-Ju Ahn and Inbee Park this week. Play's already begun in round 2, so time to call it quits on this post!