KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) \u2014 Hye-Jin Choi tapped in for a birdie after missing a 20-foot eagle putt on the 18th hole to give her a 6-under 66 Friday and a five-stroke lead after two rounds of the LPGA Tour\u2019s Maybank Championship.<\/p>\n
Choi, who played on the South Korea team in last week\u2019s International Crown, had a 36-hole total of 14-under 130 on the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country club course. She started the day with a one-stroke lead and it marked the first time in her career that she has led after the first two rounds.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old Choi is winless on the LPGA Tour but has 28 career top-10 finishes. She placed second at the 2017 U.S. Women\u2019s Open as a 17-year-old amateur.<\/p>\n
Choi tried to remain in a positive frame of mind despite a bogey on her first hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to keep the faith and play steady,\u201d Choi said. \u201dSo I made lots of birdies today and my shots and putting was all good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defending champion Yin Ruoning shot 67 and moved up 19 places and into second place. She was tied with Hannah Green, a member of the winning Australia team at the International Crown last weekend, who shot 69 Friday.<\/p>\n
Green said she enjoys playing in Malaysia, which is only a six-hour flight from her home in Perth, Western Australia. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like my home event,\u201d Green said. \u201cI also call this another home event.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealander Lydia Ko, who played on a composite World lineup in the team event in South Korea, had a 70 in the second round and was in a group tied for fourth, six strokes behind Choi.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty fatigued coming into this week,\u201d Ko said. \u201cJust been trying to stay cool and keep my energy levels up.\u201d<\/p>\n
World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul shot 70 and was eight shots off the lead. Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., had a second consecutive 70 and was 10 strokes behind Choi.<\/p>\n
Thitikul, the only multiple winner on the LPGA Tour this year after winning the Mizuho Americas Open in May and in Shanghai nearly three weeks ago, has finished runner-up the last two times she has played in Malaysia.<\/p>\n
Next week, the LPGA ends its five-week Asian swing with the Japan Classic at Shiga.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) \u2014 Hye-Jin Choi tapped in for a birdie after missing a 20-foot eagle putt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-253764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253764","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=253764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}