NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) \u2014 Lauren Coughlin threatened for two days to run away with the Aramco Championship, but with hilly Shadow Creek living up to its reputation as course in which pars are good scores, she had to work hard for her two-shot lead going into the final round Sunday.<\/p>\n
Coughlin shot a 1-over 73 on Saturday, and her 7-under score for the tournament was just one of five in red figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis golf course is really, really hard, especially if you get in the wrong spot,\u201d Coughlin said. \u201cI felt like I did a pretty good job today of at least getting in spots, and if did get a little out, making sure I walked away with no worse than bogey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nelly Korda birdied her final two holes to shoot a 69 to move to 5 under and in second place, setting up a final pairing of friendly rivals.<\/p>\n
Nanna Koerstz Madsen and Miyu Yamashita were each 3 under and Leona Maguire was 1 under.<\/p>\n
\u201cShadow definitely showed its colours the last couple days,\u201d Korda said. \u201cIt\u2019s been playing brutally hard, especially the back nine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hyo Joo Kim almost certainly won\u2019t extend her LPGA Tour winning streak to three after she opened the round with two bogeys and a double bogey over the first three holes. She dropped from a tie for second all the way down to a tie for 17th at 4 over after a 79.<\/p>\n
Anna Huang of Vancouver sits sixth at even par. Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., is tied for 33rd at 7 over.<\/p>\n
Being within striking is one thing in this loaded event, which has a $4 million purse and is co-sanctioned with the Ladies European Tour and part of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund Global Series. Making an actual charge is another as Saturday showed with several players getting close to Coughlin, but failing to make up the difference.<\/p>\n
Korda, the world\u2019s second-ranked player and the 2024 champion of this event, came the closet, even getting to within a stroke before Coughlin birdied the par-5 18th.<\/p>\n
Korda began to make an early charge after registering birdies at third and fourth holes to get to 4 under. She then hung around with pars on the next 10 holes before bogeying the par-4 15th to drop to 3 under. But Korda then finished birdie-birdie.<\/p>\n
This year is beginning to resemble the magical 2024 season for Korda, who won seven times en route to becoming Player of the Year. Certainly better than last season when she failed to record a victory.<\/p>\n
Through three tournaments this year, Korda owns a victory and two second-place finishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just playing really good golf,\u201d Korda said. \u201cI have always worked really, really hard, but I\u2019m proud of the work that I\u2019ve put in the past few weeks when I had off and didn\u2019t go to Asia when the tour was there. I just feel refreshed, happy. I\u2019m excited to compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year was just a weird year where stuff was just not going my way by like centimetres. That wears on you, and that\u2019s why I like taking like longer breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coughlin last won in 2024, finishing first in Canada and Scotland.<\/p>\n
She almost won at Shadow Creek last year, too, when it was a match-play event. Coughlin made it to the final pairing before losing to Madelene Sagstrom.<\/p>\n
Her strong performance again this week shows Coughlin knows how to work her way around the course much better than most of her competitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a few holes that you can make birdies, like the par 5s, 11, 12,\u201d Coughlin said. \u201cSo trying to take advantage when you can and just holding on for dear life on the other holes.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
Mark Anderson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) \u2014 Lauren Coughlin threatened for two days to run away with the Aramco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-583039","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\/583039","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=583039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}