Vu sinks 3 straight birdies for 2-shot Ford lead

CHANDLER, Ariz. — Lilia Vu lastly made a bogey after which misplaced her lead Saturday. She responded with three straight birdies for a 4-under 68, giving her a two-shot lead over Charley Hull of England going into the ultimate spherical of the Ford Championship.

Vu started the match by going 41 holes and not using a bogey, a streak that ended on the sixth gap of Whirlwind Golf Membership.

Much more damaging was the double bogey she took on the 14th gap, which dropped her right into a tie for the lead when Hull made a left-to-right putt from 15 toes for birdie on the sixteenth.

That solely sharpened Vu’s focus, significantly on the greens. She answered with a 40-foot birdie putt up a ridge on the fifteenth. She judged a wedge completely with the wind at her again and it rolled out to 2 toes on the sixteenth.

She made it three in a row with a phenomenal lag putt from 40 toes simply off the inexperienced on the par-5 seventeenth to faucet in for birdie. Vu completed at 18-under 198.

Hull, who opened the match with a 63, holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th for a 68 to get inside two pictures and land a spot within the last group with Vu on Sunday.

However that is removed from a two-player race.

Seven different gamers have been inside 4 pictures of the lead, all of them dealing with the robust wind and agency greens that require gamers to hit their spots on bouncy greens for birdie probabilities.

Lacking from these within the combine was Nelly Korda, the defending champion. The No. 1 participant within the ladies’s world rating, Korda was inside one shot of the lead till she went nowhere on the again 9, failing to birdie the par 5s and making two bogeys.

Korda shot 73, and together with being seven pictures behind, she had 18 gamers in entrance of her.

Vu felt as if she sorted out her swing, hitting the ball the very best she has all week. It was a matter of judging the space and the bounce and the wind, and that was tough.

“I used to be telling my caddie, ‘I simply cannot get the numbers proper at the moment.’ And he simply mentioned to me, ‘I am simply going to get you on the inexperienced after which you’ll be able to simply attempt to make the putt from there.’ And that is what we have been doing,” Vu mentioned.

Ayaka Furue of Japan (67) and Nanna Koerstz Madsen of Denmark (69) have been three pictures behind, adopted by adopted by a gaggle at 14-under 202 that embody Jeeno Thitikul (70), the No. 2 participant on the earth, Yahui Zhang of China and former U.S. Girls’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz (67).

Zhang had the low spherical of a windy day at 65, which included a bogey on her last gap.