Ko leads Kang by two shots in Boca Raton
Even as the exams change, Lydia Ko continues to provide the proper answers needed to stay in front at the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio in Boca Raton.
Ko opened with a 63 when conditions were prime for scoring. When temperatures dipped into the 40s on Saturday and the wind was a steady 15-20 mph with gusts as high as 33 mph, Ko was asked to survive the day. She showed she can do that, too.
Her even-par 72 — one birdie, one bogey, 16 pars — gave her a two-shot lead over Danielle Kang (74) heading into the final round of the LPGA Tour’s first full-field event of the year.
Ko was at 11-under 205. Celine Boutier of France had the low round Saturday of 69 —arguably the best round of the young LPGA season — and climbed into contention. She was three shots behind.
Ko, 24, is seeking her 17th LPGA Tour title, having won her first when she was only 15. There was a time she grew too technical with her game, harboring too many mechanical thoughts in trying to make perfect swings. But Ko won last season again (Lotte Championship) and is carrying renewed confidence, climbing back to No. 3 in the world.
“It’s great to be back in contention,” Ko said. “I played really solid and I played really consistently, especially in the back half of my season last year. I think when you keep putting yourself there, you feel like at one point it’s going to fall, you know? I’m playing alongside the best female golfers and some of the best athletes in the world, so it’s not easy.”
There was nothing easy Saturday, when the average score of the 74 players who survived the cut was 75.136, more than three shots higher than Thursday.
Stacy Lewis (72) likened the day to a British Open. Only four players broke par, only one scored in the 60s, and 33 players in the field shot 76 or higher.
Kang won the seasonopening Tournament of Champions last week with a 69-68 weekend in tough, cold conditions. On Saturday at Boca Rio, however, the wheels to her game came off, at least for a spell.
Kang bogeyed the par-5 10th after making the turn at 1 under, then stumbled into back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 14 and 15. She three-putted the 14th when her 35-foot downhill putt rode the wind and finished 9 feet beyond the hole. At 15, a par 4, she played into a front bunker off a downhill lie on her second shot, blasted to 5 feet but failed to convert the putt.
Kang had to rally to make three pars on the way in to keep within striking distance of Ko. Saturday marked the first time in seven rounds this season that Kang did not score in the 60s.
“Today was rough. I checked out a little bit for the back nine,” Kang said. “I did everything I can to stay in contention and gave myself a chance tomorrow. It was really tough out there. I missed a lot of putts. There was a lot of gusting shots, and I never missed so many putts by so far in a while.”
Boutier kept her head down and plugged along, and never even realized she’d gone bogey-free until after she had signed her card.
Her iron play has been excellent all week; Saturday marked her second consecutive round without a bogey. Heavy winds were making everything tricky, but she solved the challenge by hitting 12 of 14 fairways and 14 of 18 greens.
“I wish I played with her and learned something,” said U.S. Women’s Open champion Yuka Saso, who birdied the 18th hole to shoot 72 and was four back, along with Charley Hull (71).
EUROPEAN TOUR
Rory McIlroy moved within two shots of leader Justin Harding after the third round at the Dubai Desert Classic in United Arab Emirates as the Northern Irishman tries to win the event for the third time.
McIlroy shot a 3-under 69 to get to 10-under overall at the tournament he won in 2009 and 2015. He closed the gap on Harding, who maintained his halfway advantage with a 71 at Emirates Golf Club.
“It would be nice to get another win, especially here in Dubai,” the No. 8-ranked McIlroy said. “I’ve just got to go out there [Sunday] and try to play a good round of golf and hopefully it’s good enough.”
On the back nine, McIlroy hit three superb second shots into par 5s that set up an eagle and two birdies. He had two other birdies on the front nine along with three bogeys on the day.
“It was a fair reflection how I played. Some good things in there and a couple bad things as well and I feel like it all evened out by the end and it was nice to birdie the last and shoot something in the 60s and play myself into the final group tomorrow,” the four-time major winner said.
Tommy Fleetwood (69) and Erik van
Rooyen (71) are both three strokes off the lead, one shot clear of a group of six that includes Paul Casey (70) and Tyrrell Hatton (73).