Kim shot a five-under 65 on Thursday at Pelican Golf Club to sit second, just one behind leader Haeren Ryu.<\/p>\n
It’s turning out to be a breakthrough season for the 24-year-old after securing her first major at the Evian Championship in France.<\/p>\n
But she is still on the lookout for points after starting the year down on confidence.<\/p>\n
“I guess at the start of the year I was quite low with my self-confidence, and I still have times where I don’t think I’m good enough at times,” Kim said.<\/p>\n
“I’m quick to be negative internally. So seeing that even if it wasn’t my best stuff during the International Crown, I had my team to back me.<\/p>\n
“Even if I was sick during Evian, I still had to get it done. Maybe I was not feeling my best, but I tried to give my 100 per cent of all that I had.<\/p>\n
“And trying to learn around that and, yeah, I guess that just build on my self-confidence. You don’t need your A-game and 100 per cent to get it done.”<\/p>\n
Kim, who entered the CME rankings at No.30, is in hot pursuit of South Korean Ryu, who made four late birdies to take the lead.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Kupcho (four-under 66) is alone in third place.<\/p>\n
Another stroke back at three-under 67 are some big names: Charley Hull of England, Ireland’s Leona Maguire, South Korean Somi Lee and Mao Saigo of Japan.<\/p>\n
Ryu may have surprised herself a bit with her low score.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, I don’t like Florida because my score is not good at this city, but every year I just hope that I play well in this course and for that, and I’m so happy – yeah, that’s why I’m so happy to get 64 today,” Ryu said.<\/p>\n
Ryu started her round on the back nine and played it in two under par. Her birdie streak began at the fourth hole and included three par-4 holes before being capped off at the par-5 seventh. She also hit all 14 fairways in regulation.<\/p>\n
For Kupcho, five of her six birdies came on the back nine between Nos.11 and 17.<\/p>\n
Rose Zhang is part of a 10-golfer group tied at two-under 68.<\/p>\n
Cassie Porter is next best on 69. Tied 18th, the Australian started the week at No.60.<\/p>\n
Potter is joined by compatriot Gabriela Ruffels at one under, while Hannah Green is even par.<\/p>\n
Nelly Korda, the world’s No.2 player, shot a one-over 71 in her return from a self-imposed break to allow her neck injury to heal.<\/p>\n
Kai Trump, an amateur and the granddaughter of US president Donald Trump, is playing this week on a sponsor’s invite. The high school senior who’ll compete for Miami University next year sat in last place in the 108-golfer field after a 13-over-par 83.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kim shot a five-under 65 on Thursday at Pelican Golf Club to sit second, just one behind leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-284551","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\/284551","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=284551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}