The 23-year-old fired a five-under 67 at the Blythefield Country Club in Belmont on Thursday to share second with American Jessica Porvasnik.<\/p>\n
They are one behind China’s Yan Liu, who sank seven birdies on her way to her 66, with all three women chasing their maiden win on tour.<\/p>\n
Porter has been making all the right noises, with four career top-10s already, and though winless, the Sydneysider is loving life on the course.<\/p>\n
She played the back nine first and rolled in birdies at Nos.12, 14 and 15 , before her lone bogey on No.16.<\/p>\n
Porter rebounded with birdies at both the 18th and first holes and added one more on her way in after finding 15 of 18 greens in regulation.<\/p>\n
Her only \u200bwin \u200bon the developmental Epson Tour has been in the state of Michigan in 2024.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, I \u200cjust love it here,” Porter said. “I mean, I had an awesome pro-am group [Wednesday] and I have some great host families, so I’ve spent a lot time here, even in off weeks, which is awesome.<\/p>\n
“Big fan of the lake life too, and the river life.”<\/p>\n
One of her threats for the rest of the week is compatriot Hannah Green, who lurks just three shots behind her.<\/p>\n
The 2019 Women’s PGA Championship winner has eight LPGA Tour victories to her name, including her major success, and has been in a rich vein of form this year.<\/p>\n
With wins already in the HSBC Championship in February and Los Angeles Championship in April, Green also finished tied seventh at the Chevron Championship.<\/p>\n
The West Australian had three birdies, with her only blemish for the day coming on the par-four second. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the round’s highlights was the ace by Julia Lopez Ramirez, her master shot leaving her at one-under in a tie for 41st.<\/p>\n
Leader Liu \u200chad a front-nine burst with four birdies and a bogey across a five-hole stretch (Nos. 4-8), before adding \u200cbirdies at Nos.14, 15 and 18.<\/p>\n
“I was just very focussed on my process today,” Liu said. “Because it’s very windy, a lot of things were out of my control, so I just did what I could control.”<\/p>\n
Liu, 28, tied for fourth at the first major of \u200cthe year, the Chevron Championship, \u200cbut that was \u2060her best finish of the year.<\/p>\n
Porvasnik, meanwhile, is No.284 \u200bin the world rankings and had made just seven starts in her second year on tour.<\/p>\n
She put herself in contention with six birdies and a single bogey while finding 15 of 18 greens in regulation.<\/p>\n
with Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 23-year-old fired a five-under 67 at the Blythefield Country Club in Belmont on Thursday to share second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-745951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745951","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=745951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}