OCALA – The marathon continues.
Saturday morning the third round of the Coates Golf Championship Presented by R+L Carriers finished with 36-hole leaders Lydia Ko and Ha Na Jang still sharing the top spot on the leaderboard. The duo resumed their third round at 7:30 a.m. at the seventh hole and matched each other throughout the day, Ko posting five birdies and Jang with four of her own to finish the day at 11-under par.
“Sometimes I really sink the birdie and then Lydia first hole, then my second hole. It’s like it’s really good right now, yeah it’s great,” Jang told the media after her round.
The back-to-back early morning starts are beginning to take its toll on the players, arriving before the sun and leaving in the dark, with temperatures cut in half from earlier in the week, hovering around 40 degrees as players arrive and leave from the course. The schedule has forced Ko to change up her routine this week, foregoing her normal nine hours of sleep
“I came out here maybe a half hour later than I normally would, especially since it’s so cold in the morning you don’t really want to be out here trying to hit a lot of balls,” said Ko. “But I changed up my routine a little bit so I hit range balls last so that it would be closest to warming up when I got to the tee.”
The duo will remain grouped together along with Haru Nomura for the final round. Brooke Henderson made a charge on Saturday, carding a 5-under par, 67 to move into solo second after draining a 20-footer for eagle at the last to jump 9-under par for the Tournament.
“It’s kind of been up and down the first three days. I made some putts but missed a lot that I should have made and then today on the back nine a lot of putts were going in which was nice but there were still two or three that were very makeable,” said Henderson. “So you know it’s coming, and it feels a lot better than it did last week.”
Sei Young Kim enters the final round solo fourth at 7-under par, ahead of a group tied for fifth at 6-under par including Alison Lee, Suzann Pettersen and rookie In Gee Chun.
The fourth round is underway. Click here for scores.
)
)
)
)
