South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai carded a 4-under 67 on Saturday to break out of a four-way tie for second and grab the lead after two rounds of action at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship in Rogers, Ark.
Buhai entered the day tied with China’s Liqi Zeng, Spain’s Carlota Ciganda and Mexico’s Maria Fassi on the leaderboard, with all four golfers sitting one shot behind first-round leader Jasmine Suwannapura of Thailand.
It was Buhai who emerged from the pack, carding seven birdies against one bogey and one double bogey. She now sits at 11-under 131 for the tournament, one stroke ahead of the Philippines’ Dottie Ardina (67 on Saturday).
“It was good. I felt I played just as well as yesterday,” Buhai said. “Obviously the winds were a little trickier than yesterday morning for us, so kind of faded out for everybody. I did start to get a little frustrated, but I was hitting a lot of good shots.”
After her double bogey at the par-4 eighth, Buhai collected six birdies over the final 10 holes, including four from Nos. 14-18.
“Made a silly double bogey, but at least I kept calm and just reminded myself to keep doing what I was doing,” Buhai said. “Finally got rewarded down the last few holes.”
Ardina got off to a roaring start, carding birdie or better on four of her first six holes. She had an eagle at the par-4 fifth and hit 13 of 13 fairways for her round.
“I had a great start, great front nine,” Ardina said. “Started with a birdie. Birdied (No. 4) and had eagle on (No. 5), good hole-out, and a birdie after that. … Had two bogeys on 11 and 12. Had a little shaky start on the back, but managed to birdie 14 and just tried to play the wind until the end.”
A pair of Thais — Arpichaya Yubol (65) and Pajaree Anannarukarn (67) — are T3 with Japan’s Nasa Hataoka (66) and Mexican Gaby Lopez (67).
Jennifer Kupcho and Lauren Hartlage shared low-round honors with matching 64s. They are part of a massive eight-way tie for seventh that also includes South Korean Sei Young Kim (65), Linnea Strom of Sweden (66) and Japan’s Minami Katsu (67).
“I was hitting my tee shots really well,” Hartlage said. “I think I only missed the last fairway maybe, and so (I) was giving myself some good positions into the green. With the greens being pretty soft you can kind of fire some darts in there, and that’s kind of what I did today.”
Suwannapura struggled to a 1-over 72 to drop into a tie for 15th.
–Field Level Media
