South Africa's Lee-Anne Pace, in her first season on the LPGA, and having begun with limited playing rights, is chasing her first win on American soil.
Following on from her good showings in both the US Women's Open and, just last week, the Ricoh Women's British Open, she is mounting a strong challenge in the Marathon Classic being played in Ohio.
Two consecutive rounds of 4 under par 68 has her T2 with Lydia Ko entering the weekend. That leaves the two of them 3 shots behind halfway leader Laura Diaz.
It could have been even better, but that is golf. Lee-Anne dipped to 8 under par early on her back 9 on Friday, and looked to be mounting a serious challenge for the 36 hole lead. Then two consecutive bogeys appeared to cost her momentum. As she is so good at doing, however, she shrugged off the setback to finish with birdies on 17 & 18 and get back to a tie for second.
Lee-Anne appears to be finding her feet and getting settled in the new environment, and the 2010 winner of the Ladies European Tour Order of Merit (with 5 victories that year) is fast making a name for herself on the new tour.
She has shown two attributes in the past which will help her at this stage of the tour season.
One: Lee-Anne always appears to get stronger as the season progresses. (The ladies equivalent of Hendrik Stenson in that regard?)
Two : Lee-Anne has shown her ability of winning from behind, twice coming from 6 shots back on Sunday in her 2010 season - in consecutive weeks.
She is currently ranked 55 in the world, and I will go out on a limb here ..... expect to see her inside the Top 20 in the World Rankings before the end of 2015.
Ashleigh Simon had a long wait after an early start on Friday to see if she was working the weekend, eventually sneaking in on the number, while Paula Reto improved Friday to level par and also made the cut.
All three South African ladies are there for the weekend, so I am really excited. Going to need to split my time, it appears between following our ladies on the LPGA and following The Open Championship.
Life can be so hard sometimes!
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