LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sei-young Kim held an eight-stroke lead with five holes left in the JM Eagle LA Championship Saturday at El Caballero Country Club. In the end, she had to go up and down from the back of the 18th green to regain her two-stroke advantage.
“Wow, it’s like a roller coaster,” said the 33-year-old Korean.
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A late blunder with four straight bogeys gave chances to players who thought they would be playing second place, including two-time tournament champion Hannah Greene, in Sunday’s final event before the season’s first women’s major.
“It’s golf. The same thing could happen again,” Kim said. “Learn, learn, learn. You fail and then you learn. Hopefully tomorrow you’ll succeed.”
Kim shot a 1-under 71 for a 15-under 201. Green, Wilshire Country Club’s 2023 and 2024 champion, shot a 67 to tie Subichaya Vinichaisam (67), Jessica Polvasnik (68) and Ina Yoon (71) at 13 under. Former UCLA star Patty Tavatanakit fell back to one stroke after a 67.
“I’m just going to go out and play golf,” Tavatanakit said.
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Due to course renovations at Wilshire, the tournament will be held at El Caballero for the second year in a row. The Chevron Championship will be held next week in Houston, the first of five women’s majors.
Kim, who entered the day with a one-stroke lead, birdied the first par-5 hole and birdied every other odd-numbered hole on the front nine, hitting a 20-footer on the par-3 ninth to take a seven-shot lead. He increased his lead to eight, but suffered bogeys on the 14th to 17th holes and fell back.
“Every hole from No. 15 to No. 18 is downwind,” said Kim, who hit the water on No. 16 and aggressively headed toward the difficult pin. “Today we had a hard time downwind.”
She won the BMW Ladies Championship on her home turf in South Korea last year, the last of her 13 LPGA Tour titles.
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“I’m very confident, but I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing the last few days,” Kim said. “That’s the best I can do. Let’s see tomorrow then.”
Green has won three times this year on the LPGA Tour, at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore, the Australian Women’s Open in her home country and the Australian WPGA.
“I don’t really know where the pin locations are set for tomorrow, but it’s definitely going to be tricky and there’s probably going to be some holes that are going to be easy to play,” Green said. “I’ve noticed over the last two days that the wind has changed at times, so it will be difficult to cope with that. The ball will fly farther from the tee.”
Amateur Asterisk Tully shot a 69 to finish at 7 under and tied for 23rd place. Talley, 17, will be competing in her first tournament since losing the lead on the back nine of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
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During the round, the tournament prize money was increased by $1 million to $4.75 million, a move announced by JM Eagle CEO Walter Wang in an interview with Golf Channel.
The new prize money is the highest on tour outside of the major championships and the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. Sunday’s winners will earn between $562,500 and $712,500.
“It’s great news for all of us players,” Green said.
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AP Golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
