An eagle before the turn buoyed Haeran Ryu’s second round as the South Korea native increased her lead to two strokes at the Black Desert Championship on Friday in Ivins, Utah.
Ryu fired a 63 on Thursday to kick off the inaugural LPGA event at Black Desert Resort. She doubled her lead with Friday’s round of 67 that brought her to 14-under-par 130, ahead of countrywoman Somi Lee, who posted a second straight 66.
Ryu, ranked 12th in the world, was clinical on Friday, finding 13 of 14 fairways in regulation and 16 of 18 greens in regulation. Her only bogey came at the third hole, and she responded from that with back-to-back birdies at Nos. 5 and 6, then the eagle at the par-5 ninth.
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“I hit driver and yesterday I make [a] par there because my driver going to right and then inside the bunker,” Ryu said. “But today afternoon playing was the distance so far, and I just want to hit it straight at the fairway, and then I think I make some on the green on my second shot.”
Ryu added birdies at Nos. 13 and 14 to get her to 14 under.
Tied for third at 11-under are South Korea’s Soo Bin Joo (68) and Germany’s Esther Henseleit, who worked around a bogey and a double bogey to shoot 68 thanks to seven birdies.
“In the end today was really only one bad swing, and that kind of cost me a couple shots,” said Henseleit, who has yet to win on the LPGA Tour, but has two Ladies European Tour titles. “I played good. Maybe didn’t hit it as well as yesterday, but holed some putts and, yeah, managed to finish with three birdies on the back nine and kind of get it back to where I was. Yeah, nice way to finish up.”
Ariya Jutanugarn of Thailand and Taiwanese Hsu Wei-ling both posted 70 and are tied for fifth at 10-under.
Two players tied for the low round of the day, a 7-under 65: Japan’s Hinako Shibuno, who is part of a large knot at 9-under, and Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh, who climbed to 8-under.
They got there in vastly different ways. Shibuno made back-to-back eagles at the par-5 13th and par-4 14th. Dryburgh absorbed a double bogey and still had enough birdies (nine) to go low.
“I was very surprised that I eagled two in a row. Overall, it was great round,” Shibuno said.
Dryburgh needed to improve on her 71 from Thursday to make the cut.
“Kind of gave myself a goal today to be 1 under every three holes, so that kind of worked out quite well,” Dryburgh said. “Didn’t manage to do it on every three holes, but kind of added up to a nice score, so I think I’ll do that again.”
The cut came in at 3-under-par. Notable players who did not advance to the weekend included A Lim Kim of South Korea (2-under), Nasa Hataoka of Japan (even par) and American Allisen Corpuz (1-over).
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