Oct 31, 2025, 05:37 AM ET<\/p>\n
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Hye-Jin Choi<\/a> tapped in for a birdie after missing a 20-foot eagle putt on the 18th hole to give her a 6-under 66 Friday and a five-stroke lead after two rounds of the LPGA Tour’s Maybank Championship.<\/p>\n Choi, who played on the South Korea team in last week’s International Crown, had a 36-hole total of 14-under 130 on the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country club course. She started the day with a one-stroke lead and it marked the first time in her career that she has led after the first two rounds.<\/p>\n The 26-year-old Choi is winless on the LPGA tour but has 28 career top-10 finishes. She placed second at the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open as a 17-year-old amateur.<\/p>\n Choi tried to remain in a positive frame of mind despite a bogey on her first hole.<\/p>\n “I tried to keep the faith and play steady,” Choi said. “So I made lots of birdies today and my shots and putting was all good.”<\/p>\n Defending champion Yin Ruoning<\/a> shot 67 and moved up 19 places and into second place. She was tied with Hannah Green<\/a>, a member of the winning Australia team at the International Crown last weekend, who shot 69 Friday.<\/p>\n Green said she enjoys playing in Malaysia, which is only a six-hour flight from her home in Perth, Western Australia.<\/p>\n “It’s almost like my home event,” Green said. “I also call this another home event.”<\/p>\n New Zealander Lydia Ko, who played on a composite World lineup in the team event in South Korea, had a 70 in the second round and was in a group tied for fourth, six strokes behind Choi.<\/p>\n “I was pretty fatigued coming into this week,” Ko said. “Just been trying to stay cool and keep my energy levels up.”<\/p>\n World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul shot 70 and was eight shots off the lead. Brooke Henderson had a second consecutive 70 and was 10 strokes behind Choi.<\/p>\n Thitikul, the only multiple winner on the LPGA Tour this year after winning the Mizuho Americas Open in May and in Shanghai nearly three weeks ago, has finished runner-up the last two times she has played in Malaysia.<\/p>\n Next week, the LPGA ends its five-week Asian swing with the Japan Classic at Shiga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 31, 2025, 05:37 AM ET KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Hye-Jin Choi tapped in for a birdie after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-255299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}