It’s been three long days of back-and-forth battle at the JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro. Thursday saw some low scores, Friday saw high ones, and Saturday was a mixed bag.
Xiyu Lin was one of the players to come up victorious against the Wilshire Country Club when the dust settled on Saturday. After shooting her lowest and statistically strongest round of the tournament, Lin will head into the final day of the tournament with plenty of lessons learned and a sound strategy.
“I definitely think you need to be aggressive on the greens when you’re putting,” Lin said after her 5-under third round. “That’s something I learned yesterday after I saw a couple bumps. It tends to slow down the speed, then the putts would never go in – like when you’re hoping it would somehow jump in the hole, it just would not. I think today, one good thing I did, I kept it really aggressive. Like there were a couple putts I literally hit into the hole. That’s very unusual for me on these poa annua greens.
“Then I think these fairways are tricky. The bunkers are definitely very tricky. There’s a couple tough holes and if you don’t manage to hit a good drive, you really need to quickly change your attitude into a little safer play. Sometimes bogey is a good score.”
Lin has felt the ups and downs of the LA Championship as much as the next golfer. In round one she carded a respectable 3-under par before tripping over two double bogeys on Friday. Despite the slip ups, the 27-year-old managed to start her third round at even par.
“I think yesterday was just a tough day because I played really well first round,” Lin explained. “The wind was swirling a lot, and obviously later in the afternoon the greens got really bumpy. I mean, I had two doubles yesterday. It’s not like I had a terrible round, just a couple mistakes. Even though it was a disappointing round, I was still putting myself kind of middle of the pack, so I know if I really do well, I still have a chance. That’s all I think of today.”
En route to her 5-under 66, the low round of the morning, Lin hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation, averaged 269.5 yards off the tee and finished the course in just 27 putts – all her best numbers of the tournament so far. She walked into the clubhouse with seven birdies and one double bogey on her score card.
Though the double on 11 could have slowed her down, Lin didn’t let it bruise her confidence, knocking in three birdies on 13, 15 and 16.
“I just told myself, it already happened twice yesterday, so you’d better do better than yesterday and not have another double,” Lin sad with a smile. “I just kind of kept myself calm somehow.
“After that double, the next par-3 was kind of hard, so I was just trying to make par, trying to be a little safer and I did. I barely missed the birdie putt. That gave me confidence. Then I know the next stretch would be pretty good and have some chances, so I just kept telling myself to be aggressive.”
Boosted by her strong performance Saturday, Lin had leapfrogged into contention and has a shot at her first win on Tour. She came perilously close to a win last season, finding three runner-up results at the Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America, Kroger Queen City Championship and Honda LPGA Thailand.
But a win will depend on whether or not Lin can conquer the Wilshire Country Club one final time. If she can, Lin might have more than a little swagger in her step when she walks into TPC Harding Park next weekend to compete for eighth-seeded China in the Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown.
Lin, who was part of the last Chinese team to participate in the international competition in 2016, will once again compete for her country alongside DIO Implant LA Open Champion Ruoning Yin, Yu Liu and Ruixin Liu.
“It’s very exciting because last International Crown it was three different teammates, so this year we will have a younger pack. I think they all are in good shape,” Lin said. “At the end of the day we got in the tournament as the eighth seed, so we really have nothing to lose. It’s a unique tournament, so I’m very excited to see how we handle this because we never really have the same kind of tournament ever.”
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