EVIAN (France): South Korea’s Kim Hyo Joo (pic) will take a slender one shot lead into the last round of the Evian Championship after a day of slip-ups and mishaps at the final major of the season.
Teenager Hyo Joo , who shot a record 61 in the first round, had a second successive 72 and finished on eight under par, one ahead of seasoned veteran Karrie Webb on 206 and two better than fellow-South Korean Hur Mi Jung.
While Hyo Joo is a 19-year-old newcomer, Karrie is the former World No 1 who could be a real threat.
And the 39-year-old has her heart set on an unprecedented clean sweep of the women’s majors.
In her career she has already won the US and Women’s British Opens, the Kraft Nabisco and LPGA Championships and the now defunct du Maurier Classic. A win here would be her sixth different major and the eight in all.
Karrie, a seven-time major champion, kept her cool on a day made difficult by some tricky pin positions that suggested the organisers wanted to get their own back for Hyo Joo’s opening ten under par round.
The 2006 Evian champion opened with a birdie and finished in style with another at the 18th from 15-feet.
“I’m just happy to be in this position. It’s been a while,” said Karrie. “I was proud of the way I scrambled today and I’ve got a lot of friends here so it would be great to win my eighth major tomorrow.”
And a name for the Karrie slam of six different majors? “Let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow before I think about that,” she cautioned.
Hyo Joo had five bogeys and four birdies and the majority of the field had tales of woe. Mi Jung was sharing the lead until she hit her second shot into water and took a triple-bogey six at the short 16th.
“It was a hard day but I played solid,” said the three-time winner on this seasons’s Korean LPGA Tour.
Suzann Pettersen, the defending champion, double-bogeyed the 17th and finished with a 74 for three under par and the same mark as World No 1 Stacy Lewis. The American bogeyed the final two holes. AFP