Green joins fellow Aussie in LPGA lead
Defending champion Hannah Green fired a one-under-par 70 as the leaders struggled to join fellow Australian Grace Kim atop the field after the third round of the LPGA Los Angeles Championship.
Green finished on sevenunder 206 after 54 holes at Wilshire Country Club to share the lead with Kim, who stumbled to a birdie-less 76 to squander a four-stroke 36hole lead.
“It wasn’t that windy. It just got a little but bumpy toward the end,” Green said of the woes of the late starters.
“I didn’t have many full swings in today. I had a lot of hard shots into the greens firming up and getting bouncy, kind of made it hard to completely trust that shot.”
One stroke adrift on 207 were South Korean Im Jinhee, Sweden’s Maja Stark and Germany’s Esther Henseleit.
South Korean rookie Im fired a 63 in the morning to set the 18-hole tournament scoring record at Wilshire to leap into contention.
“I’m really happy to get the course record,” Im said. “I played really good.”
Japan’s Nasa Hataoka nearly matched Im’s 63 but a bogey at the par-three 18th left her with a round of 64 to be sixth on 208. Im, ranked 42nd in the world, had nine birdies against a lone bogey and reached 16 of 18 greens in regulation.
Im, 25, was eighth in last week’s Chevron Championship for her first LPGA top-10 finish.
“When I started the LPGA this year, the start of a few tournaments weren’t going (as) I thought,” Im said. “Now it’s all right. I feel like I can win a tournament pretty soon.”
She will have to catch Green, who birdied the parfive second hole but bogeyed the fifth, sixth and ninth.
Green then eagled the parfive 13th, birdied 14 and 16 but missed a short par putt to bogey 17 and parred the parthree 18th.