Picking up from bangkokbobby's overview of the 1st round of the Honda LPGA Thailand event, in which Ai Miyazato shot a bogey-free 67 and took a 1-shot lead on Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak, Na Yeon Choi, Anna Nordqvist, and Amy Yang, I'm disappointed to report that Ai-sama was one of the few players not to take advantage of the Old Course before storms rolled in and stopped play today. Not long after just missing an eagle after a fantastic approach shot into the 2nd hole, she ended her bogey-free run on her 24th hole. And even though she bounced back with a new bogey-free run of 7 holes and counting and got it to -6 before she had to leave the course, she was left in the dust by a host of golfers who went super-low today.
Ya Ni Tseng and Caroline Hedwall lead the way with matching 65s and eagles on the par-5 18th and par-5 10th, respectively, while Ji-Yai Shin fired a bogey-free 66 and Suzann Pettersen, Amanda Blumenherst (who shot a 5-birdie 31 on the back and hasn't made a bogey over her 1st 36 holes), and Pornanong Phatlum matched Miyazato's 67 from the day before, but the round of the day has to belong to Hall of Famer Karrie Webb, who birdied her last 4 holes on the front in a row, missed a great chance to make it 5 in a row on the par-5 10th, and followed it up with a hole-in-1 on the par-3 12th. A bogey on the very next hole cut off her 30-hole bogey-free streak, but she bounced right back with a birdie on the par-4 14th to get back to double digits under par.
Here's how the leaders stand right now:
1st/-10 Karrie Webb (68, -6 through 14)
T2/-8 Ji-Yai Shin (70-66), Amy Yang (68, -4 through 14)
T4/-7 Caroline Hedwall (72-65), Suzann Pettersen (70-67)
T6/-6 Ya Ni Tseng (73-65), Amanda Blumenherst (71-67), Pornanong Phatlum (71-67), Ai Miyazato (67, -1 through 13)
T11/-5 Stacy Lewis (70, -3 through 17), Christel Boeljon (69, -2 through 15)
Lower down the leaderboard, but moving quickly up it, Cristie Kerr, Mina Harigae, Belen Mozo, and Michelle Wie posted sweet 68s, while Chella Choi, Ariya Jutanugarn, Dewi Claire Schreefel, Azahara Munoz, Angela Stanford, and Karen Stupples rounded out the list of players who broke 70 before play was stopped. Despite making a hole-in-1 herself on the par-3 12th yesterday, Paula Creamer was just the best among the big names stuck in neutral or reverse this week. Here's the list of thus-far disappointments:
+1 Creamer, Stanford, Catriona Matthew, Sandra Gal, Inbee Park
+2 Stupples, Lexi Thompson, Shinobu Moromizato, Tiffany Joh
+3 Momoko Ueda
+4 Hee Kyung Seo, Ryann O'Toole
+5 Morgan Pressel, Sun Young Yoo
+6 Song-Hee Kim, Eun-Hee Ji
+7 Beatriz Recari
+8 Hee-Won Han
+9 Laura Davies
+13 Christina Kim
Gotta go; Webb's hole-in-1 is about to show up on the DVRed 2nd round coverage! More this weekend!
[Update 1 (2/18/12, 11:21 am): bangkokbobby notes Webb took a 3-shot lead into the weekend and adds his usual selection of fantastic photos!]
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