Nelly Korda and Team Georgia Hall sit atop the leaderboards at the end of Day 2 of the Aramco Team Series at The Centurion Club.
The second round was suspended at 1.40pm due to thunder and lightning in the surrounding area, but play started again at 3.10pm. However, play was suspended due to poor lighting on Saturday night, and out of the 36 teams, there were still two teams left to complete the second round.
In the individual competition, world number two Korda leads the way at ninth-under-par after shooting a round of 69 on Saturday to build a solid five-shot lead. The American opened with a birdie on first and next made it on the 13th hole, making a great eagle on the 15th, but dropped a one-putt later before finishing with a birdie on the last.
“It was really hard,” Korda said. “This is probably the wildest weather I’ve played in a really long time. I would say this was one of my best rides this year.”
As for her sensational eagle on the 15th, Korda may have surprised caddy Jason McDeddy by reaching the green into two.
“Yesterday when I played 15 the hole was downwind and it was left hand and Jason told me it was a three shot hole for sure and there was no way I could get there in two. I just hit that shot driver, I was hitting a controlled driver like Low bite all day which really helped with the wind, I got the ball and had a perfect number.I hit it really well and everything came together.
She added: “Playing that kind of golf once in a while is really fun, you can be creative and hit those low bites. I had a lot of fun out there, maybe it wasn’t so great weather, but when you play well on these rounds you can play more creativity.”
Home favorite Charlie Hull started the day alongside Korda at the top of the leaderboard. However, the English ace was unable to reproduce the magic of her first day and fell off the pace with a score of 76. Nicole Garcia of South Africa sits just four short of par after taking an innings of 71 for the second time. consecutive day. Sweden’s Sophie Bringner and Japan’s Yuri Onishi finished third, three below par, at the end of the second day.
Three players are tied for fifth place with Germany’s Leonie Harm, England’s Charlie Hall and Spain’s Nuria Iturioz in second place. Austria’s Emma Spitz, Georgia Hall and Finland’s Nora Komolainen sit in the back and round out the top ten one-under-one.
The quartet of Georgia Hall, Kaylee Henry, Leah-Ann Bramwell and amateur Michael Ostick lead the team event at -24. They sat in third place overnight on the 14-under, but came out strong on their final holes. Despite the incredibly windy conditions, Team Hall shot a 10-under-par round that included a birdie on 17 and an eagle on 18 to score the win.
“It’s so breezy outside and there’s 3 logs that only went 200 yards, but I’m obviously very happy with that,” said Hall, who rolled at the Eagle at 18. “He contributed a lot to the team scoring, and we’ll see where we get at the end of the day.”
“I’m not sure that will be enough because there are still so many holes to play out there for a lot of people, it’s a wait-and-see kind of thing,” said Henry. “I think we did well anyway and that would still be a really good finish for the team. I think we’re very happy with what we did in the circumstances.”
Having disbanded this morning, the quartet finished their run in the early afternoon, but despite this, they sat on the brink of victory with only two teams left to finish. Hull’s side, who led overnight, came in shortly after firing a five-under-par innings on the second day at the Centurion Club to finish on 23-under-par. Team Garcia is tied for third at 21-under with Team Karta at 20-under for fourth and four teams tied for fifth at 19-under par.