Despite a two hour and 45-minute delay on Thursday due to heavy fog, Pauline Roussin-Bouchard carried her momentum from Week One through the fifth round of LPGA Q-Series and leads at -23 through 15 holes. Play was suspended at 4:31 p.m. due to darkness with five groups left to finish fifth-round play, and will resume Friday at 7:25 a.m. Even with the stoppage, Roussin-Bouchard kept steady after four rounds in the 60s last week in Mobile, Ala. and has so far posted five birdies to one bogey on No. 15. It was her first bogey since No. 1 in the fourth round on the Crossings Course.
KLPGA winner Na Rin An came out of the gate strong on Thursday and is 8-under through 15 holes. She’s one back of Roussin-Bouchard in solo second at -22 thanks to nine birdies and one bogey, including five red numbers through her first nine holes.
“Overall I thought my shots and putts were really good today. I'm not finished yet with the round, but I feel like I have a really good score at this point,” said An. The 25-year-old, who stayed focused during the Thursday morning delay by spending as “least energy as possible,” said she’ll look to continue her spectacular play on Friday the same way she carried out the fifth day. “I think I'll take it shot by shot tomorrow and really focus on my play.”
Race to Costa del Sol winner Atthaya Thitikul, who is 6-under through 15 holes, along with KLPGA winner Hye-Jin Choi (also through 15 holes) are tied for third at -19. Thitikul received high praise from Epson Tour winner Peiyun Chien, who said she’s working as hard as possible to get to back to the LPGA Tour.
“She's so good. She makes every putt, so I still thinking I need to learn a lot with the putting,” said Chien, who has yet to record a bogey in the fifth round through 15 holes and sits in solo fifth. “I control my ball very well in these two weeks, especially my irons. I think it's really good. Just sometimes the putts are pretty hard to read. So I pretty improve myself, and I’m just very excited to go back to LPGA and just play any tournament. I really want to go back.”
Linnea Johannson’s 65 and Dewi Weber’s 66 have them tied for sixth at -14, with Allisen Corpuz alone in eighth at -13 through 16 holes. JLPGA winner Ayaka Furue, through 16 holes, and Ladies European Tour winner Stephanie Kyriacou, through 15, round out the top 10 at -12 in a tie for ninth. Major champion Hinako Shibuno is among five players tied for 11th at -11. Janie Jackson and Linn Grant both recorded aces on Thursday for the first hole-in-ones of this year’s Q-Series. Jackson aced No. 4 from 130 yards, while Grant made hers on No. 6 from 142 yards. Sixth-round play will commence at 7:30 a.m. on Friday.
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