Favourite Ryu Hae-ran held the halfway lead at the Women\u2019s British Open after recovering from a rocky start to her second round to post a two-under 69 and reach seven under for the tournament at a sun-baked Royal Lytham on July 31.<\/p>\n
World No. 3 Ryu, who came into the week as a hot favourite after winning the PGA Championship and July\u2019s Evian Championship, bogeyed her third hole and double-bogeyed the fifth to slip back early in her second round. <\/p>\n
But the South Korean responded superbly and was flawless after that with five birdies, including one on the 18th that gave her the outright lead heading into a weekend where she will try not to think about her pursuers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to focus on other players. I will just keep thinking about my golf and the golf course,\u201d Ryu told reporters. \u201cA lot of great players in here, so that\u2019s why I just want to think about my golf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Shiho Kuwaki went out early and was the long-time clubhouse leader after carding a solid one-under 70 on a day marked by extremely slow play, with the afternoon groups taking well over five hours.<\/p>\n
Defending champion Miyu Yamashita was packing her bags after a quadruple bogey at the par-four 18th meant she missed the cut with a second-round 77.<\/p>\n
Overnight leader Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand went round in nine more shots than her stunning first-round 64 as a two-over 73 left her tied with American Yealimi Noh, two shots off the lead, while Joo Soo-bin was a further two shots adrift and alone in fifth place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t hit close to the pins as I did yesterday. Maybe the pin positions were kind of hard,\u201d Jeeno said by way of explanation for her relative struggle. \u201cJust going to have to be patient at the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
World No. 1 Nelly Korda \u2013 like Ryu, bidding for a third major this season \u2013 hit back after an opening-round 73 with a six-birdie 68 putting her in the mix for the weekend at one under along with 2024 champion Lydia Ko of New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely better than yesterday,\u201d said Korda.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s world No. 5 Lottie Woad maintained her steady progress with a level-par 71 although a bogey at the 18th, only her third in two rounds, where she drove into a deep pot bunker, left her five shots adrift of Ryu.<\/p>\n
Woad is trying to become the first home winner since Georgia Hall, also at Lytham, in 2018.<\/p>\n
She was in a group of eight players packed together on two under, including compatriot Charley Hull.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Minami Katsu and American duo Lucy Li and Jing Yan are also on two under after all shooting three-under 68s.<\/p>\n
Singapore\u2019s Shannon Tan made it through to the weekend in her fourth consecutive Major this season, after carding a three-over 74 in the second round to tie for 25th on one-over 143.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old had earlier bounced back from a dreadful shank on the par-four eighth hole in the opening round to sign for a two-under 69. She started her second round at the Royal Lytham & St Annes with two birdies, but dropped late shots as the winds picked up for a double bogey on No. 15 and a bogey at No. 18. Her two-round score was above the +5 cut for the tournament and put her eight shots behind Ryu. REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Favourite Ryu Hae-ran held the halfway lead at the Women\u2019s British Open after recovering from a rocky start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-569932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}