NAPLES, Fla. — Somi Lee determined to alter her placing grip, and it paid off in a giant manner on the CME Group Tour Championship on Thursday, because the Korean opened with an 8-under 64 and held a two-stroke lead within the chase for the $4 million prize.
Due to the nice and cozy situations, Lee began to drag away one membership all the way down to his 5-iron and made an eagle on the par-5 seventeenth. Her solely failure was a protracted three-putt bogey on the ultimate gap at Tiburon Golf Membership.
Nonetheless, she was two strokes behind former U.S. Girls’s Open champion Arisen Corpus.
Gino Titicle, the No. 1 participant and main candidate for LPGA Participant of the 12 months, had a spherical of 67 with six birdies, tying him with three different gamers. Titicle received final 12 months’s Tour Championship, and except Japan’s Miyu Yamashita wins this event, she’s going to win the Participant of the 12 months award.
Yamashita, who had two wins this 12 months together with the Girls’s Open, had a sluggish begin with two bogeys and began with a 70.
Nelly Korda, trying to keep away from a winless 12 months after successful seven titles a 12 months in the past, missed a 3-foot birdie putt on the seventeenth with a lackluster spherical of 71.
Lee teamed with Jin Hee-im on the Dow Championship and was certainly one of 29 gamers to win on the LPGA this 12 months. She had a stable 12 months, ending 14th within the race to CME Grove, however felt the putts have been holding her again. That is when she turned to latest LPGA Corridor of Fame member Lydia Ko.
“I simply copied Lydia Ko’s putter grip, as a result of she’s an excellent participant, and I believed, ‘What if I copy the putter grip of an excellent participant?'” It labored out rather well, Lee mentioned.
She tried it out final week, made some changes, and did properly on the Tour Championship, taking simply 27 putts within the spherical.
The High 60 has reached the season finale and the Race to CME Globe rankings have misplaced which means. The winner of the event will take dwelling $4 million, the richest prize in ladies’s golf, out of an $11 million purse.
“I do know it is like taking part in with a $4 million verify, however I feel it is nearly like a bonus for me to have the ability to play right here in a 12 months like this,” Titicle mentioned. “This 12 months has been going rather well, so I haven’t got to consider it that a lot.”
Titikul tied for third place with Lim, Nasa Hataoka, and Sei-young Kim. Main champions Grace Kim (Evian Championship) and Minjee Lee (Girls’s PGA) joined the group at age 68.
