Megan Kang led the 36-hole leaderboard at the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open in Ayrshire, Scotland, on Friday, ahead of Australia’s Minjee Lee, as a handful of players began to break away from the pack.
Kang shot two straight rounds of 68 and Li carded a 69 to get to eight-under 136. They are two strokes ahead of Lauren Coughlin (69), Lydia Ko of New Zealand (69) and Charlie Hull of Great Britain (68).
No other player in the tournament has scored less than three under par (Estelle Henseleitn of Germany and Mary Liu of China).
The 26-year-old Massachusetts native has just one LPGA victory but is 27th this week in points in the season-long Race to the CME Globe. She had six birdies and two bogeys on Friday at Dundonald Links.
That included a second straight chip-in birdie on Friday, when Kang put backspin on the ball on the par-5 third hole, sending it flying straight into the cup.
“My mindset was, ‘I’m going to hit it close and get par,'” Kang said. “Again, I hit a really good chip shot that bounced off and rotated a little bit and went back into the hole. Those kinds of things help me stay within my limits and not get too frustrated. If I hit a good tee shot and it didn’t bounce the way I wanted it to, I feel like I can always hole out from anywhere.”
Lee started on the back nine and improved midway through the round, scoring all four birdies from the 17th hole through the third.
“I want to win, that’s what you strive for as a player,” Lee said. “But I just do what I can control. Obviously I can’t control what other people are doing. I just try my best. And if that means winning, great, but if not, that’s part of my process.”
Two players tied for third place are ranked in the top six of the CME Globe rankings. Coughlin is fifth in points after winning her first LPGA title last month at the CPKC Women’s Open. She made par on each of her first nine holes on Friday and finished without a bogey.
“Obviously it felt great after the win,” Coughlin said, “but I still want to do it again so I’m thinking about bigger goals. Honestly, I’m just really grateful and I’m just trying to keep doing what I’m doing. It’s obviously going well so I wouldn’t really change anything.”
Ko, who won in January and won the Olympic gold medal last week, is in sixth place in the CME Grove Points standings. She shot a second straight 69 with four birdies and one bogey.
“When it’s windy, you have to be very inventive because you have to hit a 3-wood from 175 yards, which is a distance you would normally hit with a 5-iron,” Ko said. “I think it’s an unusual situation, but you have to adapt quickly to the conditions.”
Hull’s score was far better than most of the other players, as she recorded six birdies and four bogeys, including an eagle on the par-5 18th hole (her ninth hole of the day).
Notable players who missed the cut at four-over par included Allie Ewing (six-over), Thailand’s Moriya Jutanugarn (six-over) and Sweden’s Maja Stark (seven-over).
–Field Level Media
