HONOLULU (AP) \u2014 Akie Iwai fought through gusting wind Friday at Hoakalei Country Club to take the third-round lead in the LOTTE Championship, with eight players a stroke back and Nelly Korda two behind.<\/p>\n
Iwai, the 23-year-old Japanese player who won the Portland Classic in August for her first LPGA Tour title, shot a 1-under 71 in the difficult afternoon conditions to get to 13-under 203.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo change. Just keep going,\u201d Iwai said. \u201cHave smile and have fun.\u201d <\/p>\n
Second-round leader Youmin Hwang followed her career-best 62 on Thursday with a 75 to drop into a tie for second with Minami Katsu (66), Hyo Joo Kim (66), Megan Khang (67), Peiyun Chien (68), Brooke Matthews (69), Pornanong Phatlum (69) and Jessica Porvasnik (72).<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure there will be a lot of wind tomorrow, too,\u201d Katsu said. \u201cHopefully, just try to be patient.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second-ranked Korda birdied the 18th for a 69 to get to 11 under.<\/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
\u201cFor me the most important thing is giving 100% to every shot.\u201d Korda said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do tomorrow. You never know. Golf is a crazy sport. Sports are crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nasa Hataoka also was 11 under after a 71. Defending champion A Lim Kim shot a 66 to get to 10 under.<\/p>\n
Iwai steadied herself after a bogey on the par-3 12th, making a sensational up-and-down on No. 13 for the first of six straight pars. She missed a chance to double the lead on the par-5 18th, blasting out of a bunker to 6 feet and failing to get the birdie try to fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI forget what happened today and get ready for tomorrow,\u201d Iwai said.<\/p>\n
On the par-4 13th, Iwai avoided a second straight bogey after hitting into a massive fairway bunker and leaving her approach 56 yards short in the right rough. She hit a wedge to 3 feet to start the par run, and has hit 46 of 54 greens in regulation in three days,<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say I\u2019m a shot-maker,\u201d Iwai said.<\/p>\n
Iwai shot a 64 on Wednesday to take the first-round lead, then had a 68 on Thursday to fall three strokes behind Hwang, the Korean LPGA star playing on a sponsor invitation.<\/p>\n
Iwai\u2019s twin sister Chisato, also has won this year as a tour rookie, taking the Mayakoba event in May. On Friday, Chisato was 9 under after a 71.<\/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 Akie Iwai fought through gusting wind Friday at Hoakalei Country Club to take the third-round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-188711","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\/188711","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=188711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}