{"id":424794,"date":"2026-02-14T04:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T04:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424794\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T04:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T04:40:12","slug":"three-stroke-lead-for-yunseo-yang-at-halfway-stage-of-waap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/424794\/","title":{"rendered":"Three-stroke lead for Yunseo Yang at halfway stage of WAAP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yunseo Yang wrote her name into the record books as she swept into a three-stroke lead at the halfway stage of the eighth Women\u2019s Amateur Asia-Pacific (WAAP).
\nDefying heavy rain showers and warm, humid conditions, the 18-year-old Korean followed up an opening-day 64 with a five-under-par 67 at Royal Wellington.
\nYang\u2019s 36-hole total of 13-under 131 bettered by one the previous best two-round score at the WAAP, shared by Chinese Taipei\u2019s Chun-wei Wu in 2023 and Korean Sumin Hong last year.
\nBidding to become the first Korean winner of the region\u2019s pre-eminent women\u2019s amateur championship, Yang, 44th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking\u00ae (WAGR)\u00ae, finds herself in a commanding position heading into Saturday\u2019s penultimate round.
\nHer closest pursuers are fellow Korean Gyu Been Kim and Rianne Malixi, the 2024 US Women\u2019s Amateur winner from the Philippines. Kim bounced back from a bogey at the second hole with eight birdies, including six in an eight-hole stretch beginning at the 7th hole. She signed for a best-of-the-day seven-under 65 \u2013 one shot better than Malixi.
\nOn a day that saw the powerful Korean contingent flex their muscles, Sumin Hong shot a 68 for a share of fourth place with Japan\u2019s Ai Goto on 137, while Soomin Oh, runner-up last year, also returned a 68 that elevated her into joint sixth place on 138 alongside Australian Jazy Roberts, winner of the Women\u2019s Australian Amateur Championship last week, and Thailand\u2019s Prim Prachnakorn, individual gold medallist at the 2025 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.
\nHong improved on her first-day 69 by one shot. In the process, she matched former WAAP champion Mizuki Hashimoto\u2019s championship record of six consecutive rounds under 70.
\nOut in the first group of the day at 10am when the rain was at its heaviest, Yang, who led by one overnight, birdied her opening hole, the par-five 10th, but dropped her first shot of the week at 12. She was bogey-free for the remainder of the round, making five birdies and narrowly missing numerous other presentable opportunities.
\nYang, who led by five shots at one stage of the afternoon, said: \u201cI was a bit nervous at the start of the round and things didn’t go exactly the way I wanted early on. But I focused on what I could control and good results followed. I tried my best to stay calm and composed.
\n\u201cMy putting was solid again today. I managed my strategy well according to the pin positions, and the results were positive. That was the key to maintaining my score.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yunseo Yang wrote her name into the record books as she swept into a three-stroke lead at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-424794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}