Ocean Club Golf Course
Paradise Island, Bahamas
Third-Round Notes
February 7, 2015
American Gerina Piller sits atop the leaderboard at the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic at 10-under par when third-round play was suspended due to darkness at 5:54 p.m. ET. Piller leads a stacked leaderboard that included 13 players within two shots of the lead. The third-round will resume at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday with the first tee time of the final round starting at 9:38 a.m. Only two groups finished the third round on Saturday.
Fellow American Lexi Thompson had the round of the afternoon and was 7-under through 16 holes. The 19-year old is one shot off the lead at 9-under and is tied with five others including rookies Kelly Shon (thru 10), Sei Young Kim (thru 7), France’s Perrine Delacour (thru 12), Germany’s Sandra Gal (thru 9) and first and second-round leader Brooke Pancake (thru 7).
Rolex Rankings No. 2 Inbee Park (thru 7) and No. 3 Stacy Lewis (thru 15) are in a tie for eighth with four others and sit just two shots off the lead. Park has a chance to unseat Lydia Ko as the top-ranked player in the world with her finish this week. See below for scenarios. No. 1 Lydia Ko is T32 at 4-under par through 15 holes.
Piller, whose best LPGA finish is a runner-up at the CME Group Titleholders in 2013, said she’s felt much more comfortable this week while playing in contention.
“I did. I was a little nervous on the first tee, but I felt fine,” said Piller. “There’s just been a calm over me, and thank the good Lord that he’s watching over me.”
The sixth-year LPGA player said two 40-foot birdie putts on Nos. 3 and 4 jumpstarted the day and says minimizing mistakes tomorrow will be the key to separating herself from the pack.
“Just minimize the mistakes, and fairways and greens,” said Piller. “I mean, the wind could switch at any second, it can gust, and that’s really hard to deal with. I think just staying steady with fairways and greens and two putting.”
PROJECTIONS FOR NO. 1
Inbee Park seemed to have some motivation this week to get back the No. 1 ranking and is in great position to unseat 17-year old Lydia Ko from her one-week reign at the top of the rankings. Here are scenarios for Park to take over this week:
-Park wins; Ko must finish in a tie for 2nd with at least 1 other player or worse
-Park finishes solo second; Ko must finish in a tie for 4th with at least two other players or worse
-Park finishes solo third; Ko must finish in a tie for 13th with two other players or worse (9.68)
FEEDING OFF THE GROUP
Stacy Lewis and Lexi Thompson both knew they had some work to do on Saturday afternoon to put themselves in contention this week in the Bahamas and the American duo played off one another’s momentum early in the round to each jump up the leaderboard. Both players were 5-under through the first nine holes. Thompson is bogey-free with seven birdies on the day through 16 holes while Lewis picked up eight birdies and one bogey through 15 holes.
“I feel good. I would have liked to have finished that round off today, but just going to bed with a good number posted so far, you know, I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” said Lewis. “We’re going to have to, Lexi and I are going to have to keep making birdies like we did and hopefully get off to a good start like we did today.”
Thompson, a four-time winner on Tour, said once their putts started dropping, things fell in place for the duo. Her last victory came at the ANA Inspiration and she has made 19 starts since then.
“We were talking about that we probably had the best golf going on today, we had so many birdies,” said Thompson. “The first two days we were ball striking it well, just didn’t make that many putts, but today we were definitely feeding off each other off of birdies.”
NUMBERS TO KNOW
13 - Number of players within two shots of the lead with the final groups having 11 holes to finish in the third round on Sunday
6 - Americans in the top-13 on the leaderboard: Gerina Piller (-10), Lexi Thompson (-9), Kelly Shon (-9), Brooke Pancake (-9), Stacy Lewis (-8), Brittany Lincicome (-8)
19 under par- winning score by Jessica Korda a year ago. Current leader Gerina Piller is currently at 10-under par
3 - Number of rookies in the top-13 on the leaderboard: Sei Young Kim (T2, -9), Kelly Shon (T2, -9) and Ariya
Jutanugarn (T8, -8)
6 - Number of players who are within two shots of the lead and playing for their first LPGA Tour titles: Gerina Piller, Sei Young Kim, Brooke Pancake, Ariya Jutanugarn, Kelly Shon, Perrine Delacour
NOTABLES TO MISS THE CUT
The cut was made on Saturday after the completion of the second round with 74 players making the cut which fell at 1-over par 147. Last week’s winner, Na Yeon Choi (+3), 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champ Michelle Wie (+5) and 2014 RICOH Women’s British Open winner Mo Martin (+7) all missed the cut on Saturday.
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