Saturday, October 25, 2014

Blue Bay LPGA Saturday: Lee-Anne Pace Catches Jessica Korda at -11

Lee-Anne Pace won an LET event last week in her home country and her 7-birdie 66 on moving day at the Blue Bay LPGA has given her a great shot at making it 2 in a row halfway around the world.  To do it, she's going to have to get through Jessica Korda, who bounced back from an opening double bogey with 7 birdies of her own the rest of the way today to join the South African at -11.

But don't think for an instant Pace and Korda will be in some kind of match-play situation tomorrow on Hainan Island.  Chella Choi has been knocking on the door for years now and fired a bogey-free 66 of her own to move to -10.  Shanshan Feng, Michelle Wie, and Brittany Lang are only 2 behind the co-leaders.  2-time U.S. Women's Amateur champion Danielle Kang and near-Rookie of the Year last season Caroline Masson are only 3 down.  Toss in Austin Ernst and Wanyao Lu (Haruka Morita when she competes on the JLPGA) at -7 and Beatriz Recari at -6 and you have some really good golfers ready to pounce if the co-leaders ease up on the accelerator or spin out on a curve tomorrow!

Going by their stats in the 1st 2 rounds, not to mention their recent victories, I'd say this is going to come down to Pace vs. Feng.  But given how few of my picks for the week are actually in contention, you should probably ignore that prediction!

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