Michelle Wie easily advanced to the round of 16 in the Sybase Match Play Championship on Friday, beating Park Hee-young 5 and 4 on a warm, humid afternoon at hilly Hamilton Farm in Gladstone, New Jersey.
The eighth-seeded Wie was to face 57th-seeded Karine Icher yesterday morning, with the winner advancing to the afternoon quarterfinals.
Icher, from France, beat Eun-Hee Ji 2 and 1.
PHOTO: REUTERS
With by far the largest gallery following Wie, the 20-year-old Stanford student, took a 4-up lead on the front nine and ended the match with a par on No. 14.
Wie won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico in November for her first LPGA Tour title and has two top-six finishes in six events this year.
“You never know with match play,” Wie said. “I’m just going to go out there and play my hardest. ... I put pressure on myself to play the best I can.”
Japanese star Ai Miyazato, a three-time winner in the first six events of the season, dropped a 1-up decision to M.J. Hur.
After the second-seeded Miyazato missed a 1.5m birdie putt on No. 15 that would have given her a 3-up lead, Hur squared the match with birdies on 16 and 17.
On the par-5 18th, Miyazato’s wedge shot stopped just over 2m from the hole and Hur’s approach rolled up against Miyazato’s ball.
Top-seeded Jiyai Shin and fourth-seeded Taiwanese player Yani Tseng, the Kraft Nabisco Championship winner last month, also advanced. Shin beat Han Hee-won 3 and 1, and Tseng topped Candie Kung 2 and 1. No. 5 Cristie Kerr lost 4 and 2 to Yoo Sun-young.
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