It's often said that US Open venues were toughened up after Johnny Miller shot a 63 at Oakmont during the 1973 US Open. What you may not realize is that 63 is the men's record at a major, not the women's record. Last year Hyo Joo Kim shot a first-round 61 at the newly-toughened up Evian course on her way to claiming the 2014 Evian Championship.
It appears that the Evian folks didn't take care of that document.
Although the course had been softened a bit by rain this week, players noted after the first round that some of the hole positions had been Sunday positions last year. Likewise, the rough is much thicker this year, the fairways seem a bit narrower and the already tricky greens are running fast, even though the course is playing shorter than it says on the scorecard.
It's sincerely played havoc with the rankings. (Bear in mind that par is 71.) While the lead after two rounds is -nine -- last yr, the prevailing rating after four rounds changed into simplest -eleven -- players are genuinely suffering with the layout. A total of seventy seven gamers made the reduce at five, however a number of massive names -- consisting of some Solheim gamers, all of which had been there this week -- ignored the reduce badly:
- Brittany Lincicome and Caroline Hedwall shot +6
- Angela Stanford shot +7
- Mel Reid, Caroline Masson and Brittany Lang shot +8
- Paula Creamer shot +10
- Azahara Muñoz shot +11
You may be amazed to know that Michelle Wie is likewise at -1, T20. After playing poorly for a spherical-and-a-half she started locating her form once more. That's sure to make US Captain Juli Inkster (who made the cut at 2, T37) glad.
In my Brooke Henderson watch, which you can find updated daily this week with the Rolex Rankings inside the sidebar, you'll see that Brooke made the cut but lost floor Friday. She eagled the very last hole to complete at 2, however she's got her paintings cut out for her if she hopes to qualify for the Asian Swing. Remember, she'll likely need a Top4 end this week to do so.
As for the leaders, Morgan Pressel is at -eight, most effective one shot off Mi Hyang Lee's lead, and those two will play together in cutting-edge spherical. As high-quality as I can tell, Pressel's sixty five on Friday is the low spherical of the week, even though Lee shot 66-67 her first rounds.
It may be interesting to peer how things move this weekend. More rain is expected by Sunday and light winds (around 10mph) may additionally make those dramatic elevation adjustments greater difficult to gauge.
One thing that we will say for certain is that Evian's commercials are not very straightforward this week -- as a minimum not in which the players are concerned. After four days round this monster, I can guarantee you that they might not feel all that younger.
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