PHOENIX — Nelly Korda was simply pretty much as good in the more durable afternoon circumstances Friday, posting a 7-under 65 for the bottom 36-hole rating of her LPGA Tour profession and constructing a two-shot lead on the midway level of the Ford Championship.
Korda missed a possibility late to stretch her lead a little bit extra when she missed a 2-foot birdie putt on the par-5 seventeenth.
But this was not a day to complain on the Cattail course at Whirlwind Golf Club. She adopted an excellent opening spherical — one thing Lydia Ko didn’t do — with a gradual weight loss program of birdie probabilities and a easy, assured stroke with the putter.
“I have left a couple shots out there at the end,” Korda stated. “But I’m playing really solid golf, and when I do make a mistake, I try not go let it faze me too much.”
She was at 16-under 128, two photographs forward of a well-known face. Hyo Joo Kim, the defending champion in Phoenix, gained final week on the Founders Cup by holding off Korda in the ultimate hour. Korda missed a brief putt on the seventeenth gap Sunday that thwarted hopes of a second straight win to start out the yr.
Kim, who opened with a 61, overcame a errors early to publish a 69. Saturday would be the fourth straight spherical for Korda and Kim to play in the identical group.
“Just getting sick of each other now,” Korda stated with fun. “Yeah, she’s playing such solid golf. At the end of the day that’s something that motivates me to want to stay with her at that level. We’re just going back and forth, so it’s nice. At the end of the day we’re competitors, but we are very friendly. I’ve always enjoyed playing with her. I’m always mesmerized by her putting.”
Ko shot a 60 in morning circumstances of the primary spherical and would not really feel as if she performed that a lot otherwise — besides the putts turned away on the final second or burned the sting. She made so many putts in her opening spherical, and solely sufficient on Friday for a 71 that left her three photographs behind together with Jenny Bae (65) and Minami Katsu (66).
The closing gap summed up her day — a superb drive, a superb strategy, and a 12-foot putt that good all the best way till it peeled away to the appropriate.
“I just didn’t really hole many putts today,” Ko stated. “It’s obviously harder to get closer to the pins just playing in the afternoon and the greens being a little firmer. I think I struggled with a couple of the short ones. … But that’s golf, right? I can’t control everything. Yesterday was I think more of the surprise I think just shooting a score like that.”
She nonetheless discovered herself proper in the combo and Ko figures the whole lot will steadiness out.
“I feel like my game is trending in the right direction,” she stated.
Asterisk Talley, the 17-year-old beginner, had a 65 and was in the group six photographs behind at 10 below. Talley might be going to the house of the Masters subsequent week to compete in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, which she had an opportunity to win final yr.
Scoring has been so good, significantly in the morning on smoother greens, that the reduce got here at 5-under 135. Among these lacking out on the weekend have been Women’s British Open champion Miyu Yamashita of Japan and Lexi Thompson, making her first begin of the season.
Korda gained the season opener in Florida, which was reduce brief to 54 holes due to extreme wind and chilly. She skipped the Asia swing as she typically does, and was runner-up to Kim final week at Sharon Heights in Northern California.
“I’m really happy where my game is at now,” Korda stated.
