BELLEAIR, Fla. — Nelly Korda holed two lengthy birdie putts to begin her restoration from a six-shot deficit to Charley Hull, slicing the lead down to at least one shot Saturday going into the ultimate spherical of The Annika.
Hull saved the lead by limiting the harm to a bogey on the 18th gap on the Pelican Golf Membership after hitting into the water following a prolonged wait that led them to complete in close to darkness. That gave her a 2-under 68.
Korda was poised to tie for the lead when she hit the difficult 18th inexperienced about 30 ft away. Her birdie putt down the slope and with the grain towards the water nonetheless ran out 4 ft, and he or she missed the par putt and shot 67.
Each are among the many quickest gamers on the LPGA. Neither was blissful about the way it ended.
“It’s form of arduous whenever you don’t actually see. I feel it was slightly little bit of poor planning by beginning so late for us,” Korda stated. “Everytime you’re sitting on 18 and the solar is already down, I imply, it’s by no means good. And particularly with how slick these greens are and you’ll’t correctly see, I imply, clearly two elements that go into that, too.
“On the finish of the day I’m the one which missed it.”
Hull was at 12-under 198, one shot away from Korda and Zhang Weiwei, who completed a lot earlier with a 62. Zhang is No. 106 within the Race to CME Globe and desires to complete within the high 100 to maintain a full LPGA card for subsequent 12 months.
The weekend appeared to be a duel between Korda, the No. 1 participant in ladies’s golf and the LPGA participant of the 12 months, and the carefree Hull. That’s the way it seems for the ultimate spherical, although it actually didn’t begin out that approach.
Korda, who started Saturday two photographs behind, had a pair of bogeys in her opening 4 holes and did not birdie the par-5 seventh. Hull had two birdies to stretch her lead over Korda to 6 photographs, and Hull had a four-shot lead at one level.
Korda holed an excellent slick, 45-foot birdie putt on the eighth gap, and adopted that with one other clean stroke to make birdie from about 35 ft on No. 9.
