British Open, Day 3 Review
64 players made the cut and at the start of the day South African Ashleigh Buhai had a 3 shot lead over Hinako Shibuno of Japan with both players were on -12 and -9 respectively.
At the end of the day the leaderboard looks like this.
After round 3
Hinako Shibuno -14
Ashleigh Buhai -12
Sung Hyun Park -11
Jin Young Ko -10
Lizette Salas -10
Morgan Pressel -10
Hinako Shibuno from Japan holds a 2 shot lead heading into her first ever British Open. This is her first event ever outside Japan and she is not getting phased out there. This is also her first year on the full Japanese Tour. The 20 year old has won twice on tour this year including one of the major events. It will be interesting to see if she can remain as calm and smiley during her round tomorrow. Her back 9 today was truly stunning with 6 birdies including birding 17 and 18.
Ashleigh Buhai had a back 9 to forget after leading Shibuno by 6 shots at the turn, but with bogeys on 12,13 and 16 she now finds her self 2 shots behind. However, she will be in the final group heading into tomorrows final round.
World number 1 Jin Young Ko who won the Evian Championship last week her 2nd major of the year after winning the ANA Inspiration earlier in the year is lurking on -10 4 shots behind. Ko doesn't quite have that Tiger factor yet but if she wins here this week i think players will start to be afraid if she is anywhere near the top of the leaderboard.
Sung Hyun Park who has been world number 1 for a majority of this year is also chasing her 3rd win of the year. Park goes into tomorrow 2 shots behind Shibuno. Park was close last week but blew it on the Sunday. She will look to bounce back this week and claim her first major of the year and maybe bounce back to world number 1.
Morgan Pressel is on -10 after a stunning round of -6 which included 8 birdies. Pressel has not had a win on tour for over 10 years but she finds her self right in the mix here. Having only made 1 cut in her last 5 starts there may have been a few that did not consider her this week. She has a real chance with another 6 under round tomorrow.
The race for leading amateur (Silver Salver) is between the only 2 amateurs who made the cut. They are Atthaya Thitikul from Thailand who has won twice on the LET is currently on -5 while Yuka Yasuda from Japan is 2 shots back on -3. The two have done battle before at the Women's Amateur Asia Pacific Championship. This year Yasuda won the event while Thitikul came 2nd. It should be a good battle to keep an eye on tomorrow.