Saturday, November 30, 2013

Ricoh Cup Saturday: Bo-Mee Lee and Teresa Lu Take the Lead

Teresa Lu fired a bogey-free 70 and Bo-Mee Lee a 4-birdie 71 on moving day at the Ricoh Cup to take a 1-shot lead on 2nd-round leader Shiho Oyama and Sun-Ju Ahn and a 2-shot lead on Na-Ri Lee.  The round of the day, however, belonged to Junko Omote, who put together a 5-birdie 68 to jump into a tie with Mi-Jeong Jeon at E, only 4 behind the co-leaders.

Ahn had a terrible start to her day with a birdieless 39 to follow up yesterday's walkoff bogey, but eagled the 500-yard par-5 11th and followed it up with 2 more birdies on the back before bogeying her final hole to drop out of a tie for the lead.  Oyama also got off to a bad start today after yesterday's walkoff double, opening with a birdieless 38, but bounced back with birdies on the par-4 10th and par-5 13th before a bogey on the par-4 14th also left her 1 shot behind Lu and Bo-Mee Lee.  Na-Ri Lee parred every hole except the 14th; her bogey there dropped her out of the tie for 3rd.

Onnarin Sattayabanhot and Yumiko Yoshida were also in the thick of things until they hit the home stretch, when Sattayabanphot bogeyed 3 of her last 7 holes and Yoshida bogeyed 3 in a row.  They both fell to +1, 5 shots behind the co-leaders but still tied for 8th.

Further down the leaderboard, Rikako Morita's lead on Sakura Yokomine slipped to 2 shots, as both stumbled home, Morita making 2 bogeys in her last 5 holes and Yokomine 2 in her last 4 but offsetting one of them with her 3rd birdie of the day on the short par-4 17th.  Yokomine will need to go very low in the final round to have a hope of ending the season as the JLPGA's money-list leader for the 2nd time in her career.

Ji-Yai Shin will also need a great final round, as she's tied with Morita for 11th at +3 after a 4-birdie, 4-bogey round today.  With 7 players at E or better, Shin will most likely need to break 70 to move high enough on the leaderboard to finish in the top 50 of the JLPGA money list and earn a card for 2014.

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