{"id":509421,"date":"2026-03-07T15:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/509421\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T15:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:09:07","slug":"mi-hyang-lee-mixes-7-birdies-6-bogeys-to-lead-lpga-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/509421\/","title":{"rendered":"Mi Hyang Lee mixes 7 birdies, 6 bogeys to lead LPGA in China"},"content":{"rendered":"

HAINAN ISLAND, China — Mi Hyang Lee made only five pars Saturday in a wild and windy round at the Blue Bay LPGA that ended with a 1-under 71, good enough to seize control with a three-shot lead as the South Korean goes for her first LPGA win in more than eight years.<\/p>\n

Lee put together seven birdies at Jian Lake Blue Bay, offset by six bogeys to keep her from an even larger lead.<\/p>\n

She was at 12-under 204, three shots ahead of Hye-Jin Choi (68) and Yu Liu of China (73).<\/p>\n

Defending champion Rio Takeda of Japan made a charge to get into the mix by playing her final 11 holes in 6 under for a 67 that left her four shots out of the lead.<\/p>\n

“A lot of up and down,” Lee said of her round. “But still finished under par, so really looking forward to tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

Her last LPGA win was the Women’s Scottish Open in 2017.<\/p>\n

Adding to the difficulty of the wind was a nagging shoulder injury that first surfaced last fall during an LPGA event in Ohio. She wanted to finish the year at the season-ending Tour Championship and had two months off to rest.<\/p>\n

“This is my third week, so I think a little overdoing for my shoulder,” she said. “Last night I couldn’t sleep without my medication. So hopefully, just one more day for tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

Choi, the No. 15 player in the women’s world ranking, shot 31 on the front nine to get back into the mix. She was closing in on Lee until taking a bogey on the par-4 17th and failing to make birdie on the par-5 closing hole.<\/p>\n

“Back nine, it was not a really good situation compared to the front nine, but I made a lot of good saves,” Choi said. “Because of the wind, I couldn’t hit my second shot near the pin.”<\/p>\n

Lee wasn’t the only player with a roller-coaster round. Liu began the back nine with a double bogey on No. 10 and two holes later made up for that by holing out for eagle on the par-4 12th.<\/p>\n

Auston Kim had another rough Saturday. The American was in contention last week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship until a 73 in the third round. She shot a 74 at Blue Bay that left her five shots behind.<\/p>\n

Blue Bay is the third straight LPGA event on its first Asia swing of the season. A week after nine of the top 10 in the world played in Singapore, the China field had only one of the top 10 — Ruoning Yin of China, a former Women’s PGA champion who shot 74 and was nine shots back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAINAN ISLAND, China — Mi Hyang Lee made only five pars Saturday in a wild and windy round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-509421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}