HONOLULU (AP) \u2014 Youmin Hwang played in the final group off the first tee Thursday in the second round of the LOTTE Championship. She\u2019ll do it again Friday after shooting a 10-under 62, the best round in the four years the tournament has been played at Hoakalei Country Club.<\/p>\n
Hwang opened eagle-birdie, dropped a stroke on the fourth and had eight more birdies to get to 15-under 129 and open a three-stroke lead with two rounds left. Playing on a sponsor invitation, the 22-year-old South Korean player has two victories on the Korean LPGA.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, I broke my life-best score,\u201d Hwang said. \u201dAt the same time, I broke the course record, so I feel very good.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hwang matched the tournament record of 62 set by Lizette Salas in the 2013 final round and Cristie Kerr in the 2017 third round, both at Ko Olina Golf Course.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel very different about the course, first, especially the grass type,\u201d Hwang said. \u201cIt\u2019s very different to Korea and play in Korea LPGA.\u201d<\/p>\n
First-round leader Akie Iwai of Japan followed her opening 64 with a 68 in the afternoon session to join American Jessica Porvasnik (65) at 12 under.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeel like little difference, specific on the green,\u201d Iwai said. \u201cGetting hard to see the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Porvasnik played in the first group of the day of the first tee. She\u2019s a 30-year-old LPGA Tour rookie after finishing fourth last year in the Epson Tour standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just hit a lot of fairways, a lot of greens, gave myself a lot of great looks, and made a few of those,\u201d said Porvasnik, a former Ohio State player.<\/p>\n
Iwai played in a group with twin sister Chisato, who was 8 under after a 66. The 23-year-old Japanese sisters have each won this year as tour rookies. Chisato broke through at Mayakoba in Mexico in May, and Akie won the Portland Classic in August.<\/p>\n
Nasa Hataoka of Japan and Gabriela Ruffels of Australia each shot 69 to get to 10 under.<\/p>\n
Second-ranked Nelly Korda was 8 under after a 67 in the morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main difference between today and yesterday was just the putts dropped,\u201d Korda said. \u201cIt was a little gustier out there today versus yesterday, so it was fun to play in, kind of show my creative side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming off a seven-victory season, Korda hasn\u2019t won this year and has lost her No. 1 ranking to Jeeno Thitikul. The tour has had a different winner in all 24 of its official tournaments this year.<\/p>\n
Charley Hull, playing alongside Korda, was 7 under after a 68. Hull won the Kroger Queen City Championship three weeks ago in Ohio after Thitikul four-putted the final hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust played pretty solid golf,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cI found the greens kind of a bit slow, so kind of hard to get used to the pace because you just feel like you have to bash the putts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooke Henderson, the 2018 and 2019 winner at Ko Olina, was 4 under after her second 70.<\/p>\n
Defending champion A Lim Kim was 4 under after a 74. Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., was also at 4 under but after a 70.<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s Alena Sharp also had a 70 but was three shots back of Henderson. Maude-Aimee Leblanc (71) of Sherbrooke, Que., and Savannah Grewal (74) of Mississauga, Ont., missed the cut.<\/p>\n
After the event, the LPGA heads to Asia for tournaments five straight weeks in Shanghai, South Korea, Malaysia and Japan.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (AP) \u2014 Youmin Hwang played in the final group off the first tee Thursday in the second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-186657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}