Wichanee Meechai does not suppose she’s assured. She’s main the U.S. Open anyway.
Jack Hirsh/GOLF
LANCASTER, Pa. — Saturday might have gone very in a different way for Wichanee Meechai.
Such is golf. Miss a putt right here, get a foul bounce there. Anybody who has performed golf is aware of how rapidly some dangerous luck can flip an 89 right into a 94, a 79 into an 84, a 69 right into a 74.
The latter is what might have occurred to Meechai and maybe it’s what was anticipated. She almost admitted as such. The 31-year-old from Thailand is within the midst of her ninth LPGA season, however nonetheless may not have been a reputation even among the most avid girls’s golf followers had been conversant in earlier than this week. She’d by no means completed higher than T5 on the LPGA Tour and hadn’t received wherever on the earth since 2015.
If Meechai had pale from rivalry Saturday, falling sufferer to a brutal Lancaster Nation Membership setup after torching it the primary two days with rounds of 69 and 67 to take the lead, nobody would have batted an eye fixed.
However as an alternative, she battled and he or she’ll enter the ultimate spherical of the U.S. Ladies’s Open tied for the lead with Minjee Lee and Andrea Lee at 5 underneath.
It wasn’t fairly at instances — there have been many one-handed finishes and lengthy appears to be like for par — however by making 5 par putts from exterior 4 ft, she fairly actually turned 74 into 69.
Sounds loads like a really assured participant, however that’s not Wichanee Meechai, no less than in response to Wichanee Meechai.
“I’m the one who has no confidence in any respect,” she mentioned in a really candid press convention Friday afternoon. “I by no means suppose that I’m ok. I by no means suppose that I can win tournaments on the LPGA, however … if I can keep in my place and I simply preserve working arduous as I can … I believe it’s going to point out up at some point.”
Clearly, the arduous work has proven up this week as Meechai and Minjee Lee are the one two golfers within the area to interrupt 70 daily this week.
However even after posting the 69 that gave her a share of the lead going into Sunday at a serious, she doubled down on her supposed insecurity.
“To be sincere, yesterday I considered lacking the lower as a result of I was on this place,” Meechai mentioned. “Like the primary day I play fairly good, after which the second day I simply [shoot] like 80s and missed the lower by one. I cried loads. I by no means suppose that I’m going to be on the leaderboard or one thing like that. But it surely’s nice.”
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But, on Saturday, a assured and resilient participant plodded her manner round Lancaster Nation Membership.
She birdied the primary gap, drilling a putt from 22 ft proper within the heart of the cup with excellent velocity, not even touching the again of the outlet. After 5 straight pars, she hit it into the guts of the inexperienced on the par-5 seventh in two and two-putted to get to 6 underneath for the event.
Then the spherical might have gotten away from her. She hit it lengthy of the tenth inexperienced and made bogey. She did the identical on the tough par-3 twelfth, leaving her second shot from simply off the inexperienced 10 ft quick, above the outlet.
As her enjoying associate, Andrea Lee, stroked her birdie putt, Meechai stood within the heart of the inexperienced and appeared on, away from the outlet, away from the water guarding the inexperienced, away from the lots of of followers who had flocked to comply with the ultimate pairing on a U.S. Open shifting day.
She was alone.
Jack Hirsh/GOLF
In that point, she discovered her focus.
“I simply really feel like, okay, it’s going to be very downhill, and also you simply give the break and putt it,” Meechai mentioned. “Simply give attention to it, and I made it.”
Her focus ended up being precisely what propelled her to play her final six holes in even par and preserve her place atop the leaderboard.
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“I believe my give attention to the sport was fairly good at present,” she mentioned. “I hit numerous dangerous pictures, however, you recognize, like I don’t have any dangerous ideas about my swing or concerning the end result in any respect. I’m simply staying in my zone and attempting to maintain going after which be affected person.”
Her endurance was examined all day Saturday, particularly when her group was placed on the clock after the twelfth gap, however she responded every time she needed to.
She drove it in jail on 4 and 16, however got here again with magical restoration pictures each instances. That took confidence.
She ran off to the thirteenth tee when her group was placed on the clock. She appeared assured.
She responded to a bogey on 14 by lacing a tee shot and throwing a dart for an strategy at 15 for a birdie. It was a assured stroke.
Meechai could not suppose she’s assured, however it’s arduous to guide the U.S. Open for those who’re not. Ought to she turn into the primary qualifier since Birdie Kim in 2005 to win the U.S. Ladies’s Open, she in all probability received’t lack confidence for much longer.
