Michelle Wie stays on top of leaderboard at Canadian Women’s Open
By APFriday, August 27, 2010
Wie hanging on to lead at Canadian Women’s Open
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Michelle Wie’s second round didn’t have the wow factor of a hole-in-one, but a 3-under 69 on Friday was enough to keep her the American atop the leaderboard late in the second round of the Canadian Women’s Open.
The Hawaii native posted a two-round total of 10-under 134, three strokes ahead of Jiyai Shin of South Korea, who had a second-round 67.
Morgan Pressel had a 66 at the St. Charles Country Club to move into a tie at 138 with defending champion Suzann Pettersen of Norway.
Sarah Jane Smith of Australia also had a 66 and was in a group at 3 under in the tournament with a $2.25 million purse.
Wie, 20, had her ace on the par-3 11th during her first-round 65, a course record for a women’s competition.
“I tried. Didn’t work out,” Wie said with a smile of not repeating the ace. “Compared to (Thursday), nothing was that dramatic.”
She smiled again when describing one reaction of the large crowd that followed her.
“I think they were very disappointed on 11 today when I made a bogey,” Wie said.
Pressel is in her fifth year on the LPGA Tour and is seeking her third victory.
“It looks like Michelle is very confident in her game right now, so it looks like I’m going to have to have two more days of golf like I had today and we’ll see what happens,” said Pressel, who birdied five of her first eight holes.
Pressel’s best finish this season was a tie for second at the Evian Masters last month, an event won by Shin.
Shin is ranked No. 4 on the World Rolex Rankings and has nine top-10 finishes this season.
Only in her second year on tour, she said it was nice to have some fans call her name while she was in the same threesome as Wie.
“(They say), ‘Go Shin,’ and everybody knows my name, so I’m really happy and appreciate it, too,” she said with a shy smile.
Smith’s 66 gave her one of the biggest turnarounds after she shot a 75 on Thursday.
She credited some of the about-face to her coach, Canadian Sean Foley, who has been working recently with Tiger Woods. She videotaped some practice swings after her first round and sent them to Foley for advice.
“He said I was just a little out of sequence so he just wanted me to get the feeling of my backswing being a little bit slower and get me in a better position to really give it a whack on the downswing today,” Smith said.
The field dropped to 154 players after Shi Hyn Ahn and Il Mi Chung of South Korea were disqualified late Thursday for mistakenly playing each other’s balls on the 18th green.
