{"id":303930,"date":"2025-11-23T17:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T17:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303930\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T17:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T17:47:10","slug":"cme-group-tour-championship-jeeno-thitikul-leads-nelly-korda-by-six-shots-after-round-three-cards-nine-birdies-golf-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303930\/","title":{"rendered":"CME Group Tour Championship: Jeeno Thitikul leads Nelly Korda by six shots after round three, cards nine birdies | Golf News"},"content":{"rendered":"

World No 1 Jeeno Thitikul carded nine birdies for the second day running as she built a six-shot lead ahead of the final round of the CME Group Tour Championship in Florida.<\/p>\n

The Thai’s eight-under 64 propelled her to 22 under par – a 54-hole record at the tournament – with compatriot Pajaree Anannarukarn and world No 2 Nelly Korda her closest challengers in Naples at 16 under after both shot seven-under 65s on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Thitikul, who won this event last year with a score of 22 under, said: “I was just trying to focus on myself and trying to make birdies and birdies because I know there’s a bunch of players who will be able to make some more.”<\/p>\n

\"Jeeno<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Thitikul has cared 24 birdies across her opening 54 holes in Naples<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old is heavy favourite to land the winning cheque of $4m (\u00a33.1m) and become the second player, after South Korea’s Ko Jin-young in 2020 and 2021, to win this tournament back-to-back.<\/p>\n

Thitikul has already won two events on the LPGA Tour this season – the Mizuho Americas Open in May and Buick LPGA Shanghai in October – while she also triumphed at the PIF Saudi Ladies International on the Ladies European Tour back in February.<\/p>\n

Thitikul has made 24 birdies in total so far this week, with her nine gains in round three coming after she bogeyed her opening hole.<\/p>\n

England’s Lottie Woad is in a share of ninth place on 11 under after shooting a blemish-free third round of 66, with Charley Hull a shot further back on 10 under and in joint 16th place following a four-under 68 in the penultimate round.<\/p>\n

\"Nelly<\/p>\n

Image:
\n World No 2 Nelly Korda has not won an event since The Annika in November 2024<\/p>\n

On her plans for Sunday in her last chance to avoid a winless season on the LPGA Tour, Korda said: “You are out there competing hard and you’re trying to win, but you also have to not get too ahead of yourself and play the game.<\/p>\n

“If you start to get a little too ahead of yourself and push a little too hard, those mistakes do start to creep in and it’s not going to be beneficial.”<\/p>\n

Watch the final round of the LPGA Tour’s CME Group Tour Championship live on Sky Sports Golf from 6pm on Sunday. Stream golf, football, cricket, F1 and more contract-free with NOW.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World No 1 Jeeno Thitikul carded nine birdies for the second day running as she built a six-shot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-303930","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\/303930","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=303930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}