New Las Vegas resident Rose Zhang felt proper at dwelling at Shadow Creek throughout Wednesday’s opening spherical of the T-Cell Match Play.
She carded a 5-under 67, the second-best spherical of the day, and is one stroke behind South Korea’s Sei Younger Kim after day one. She sits in a tie for second with Danielle Kang.
“I felt like I used to be simply actually affected person on the market,” Zhang mentioned of her spherical.
“I had a extremely good sport plan coming in, and whenever you’re attacking pins, you form of can’t actually go at pins on this golf course, so ensuring that I had my targets and my iron play was fairly distinctive.”
Zhang completed with 4 straight birdies on the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth holes to vault up the leaderboard from one to 5-under, placing herself in a main place.
“I used to be capable of pin-seek somewhat bit extra. I felt actually assured with my irons, and I had good yardages coming in,” Zhang mentioned of her concluding birdie barrage.
Photograph by Orlando Ramirez/Getty Photos
“So, taking all of that into consideration, I received a few putts inside 5, six toes, inside three toes, and that actually helped me. Then capitalized an extended putt on the final.”
This week’s occasion on the LPGA Tour is completely different, beginning with the primary spherical happening on Wednesday as a substitute of Thursday. However after Thursday’s second spherical, a 36-hole minimize will take the highest 65 and ties. Then, after Friday’s third spherical, solely the highest eight gamers will advance after 54 holes.
On Saturday, an 8-person match play occasion will start, with the quarterfinals within the morning and the semifinals within the afternoon.
The 2 gamers left standing will sq. off on Sunday within the finals.
“It positively doesn’t change any technique, however I do know that the climate goes to be somewhat bit completely different over the following couple of days,” Zhang mentioned of the format.
“So conserving that at the back of my thoughts and nonetheless attempting to grind it out, that’s what’s most vital whenever you’re attempting to make cuts. You actually simply can’t give it some thought. You need to absolutely execute no matter you’ll be able to whenever you’re on the market, particularly with it being a really troublesome course, a troublesome observe to stand up and down from.”
Shadow Creek, which additionally hosted the unique iteration of The Match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in 2018, stumped a lot of the area on Wednesday. Solely 14 of the 96 gamers within the area completed beneath par.
Even newly-minted world primary Nelly Korda struggled considerably. She opened with a 1-over 73.
Second-round protection of the LPGA’s T-Cell Match Play will start at 7 p.m. ET stay on Golf Channel.
Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Enjoying Via. Be sure you try @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You possibly can comply with him on Twitter @jack_milko as properly.
