KirkwoodGolf

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Only Stacy Lewis, three shots behind,  can stop 

Amy Yang winning US Women's Open

FROM GOLF.COM
By RANDALL MELL
LANCASTER, Pennsylvania – As busy as he was Saturday in the middle of a moving stage they call the U.S. Women’s Open, Travis Wilson enjoyed the show.
While Stacy Lewis and Amy Yang didn’t make a lot of birdie putts storming their way around Lancaster Country Club, they took turns hurling golf shots like thunderbolts at flagsticks to the delight of the giant galleries jockeying for position to see. They put on a ball-striking exhibition.
Wilson is Lewis’s long-time caddie.
“Listening to the way it was out there, the back and forth, two great golfers going at it,” Wilson said. “There was no let-up in either one.”
Yang and Lewis couldn’t shake each other in the third round. Yang shot a 1-under-par 69, giving her three consecutive rounds in the 60s to move to 8-under 202, one stroke shy the 54-hole U.S. Women’s Open record. 
Lewis matched her with a 69. She also matched Yang with three consecutive rounds in the 60s to stay three shots back going into the final round.
With Yang and Lewis paired together again in the final round, this might already be a two-woman event.
In Gee Chun (68) is four shots back. Shiho Oyama (71) is five back.
If history’s any indicator, nobody else has a chance on Sunday. In the 69-year history of the U.S. Women’s Open, nobody has come from six shots or more behind in the final round to win. 
Lewis almost did it last year, charging from six back with a 66 at Pinehurst, but she ultimately finished second to Michelle Wie by two shots.
“I think it’s is playing even harder than Pinehurst was last year,” Lewis said. “It's a little bit comparable to the Kraft Nabisco in 2011, when I was playing with Yani Tseng, where the two of us kind of separated ourselves from the field. It kind of became a two-man show there at the end. It's similar to that.”


Lewis came from two behind Tseng at Kraft to win the first of her two major championships.
“I think I've always played better coming from behind,” Lewis said. “So I like where I am going into tomorrow.”
Yang and Lewis are both looking to script better finishes than they endured last year Pinehurst. They were both within reach of the Harton S. Semple Trophy on Sunday, only to see Wie hoisting it in the end.
Yang, 25, was tied with Wie for the lead going into the final round but shot 74. Yang, who has won seven times around the world, twice in LPGA events, keeps showing she has a game built for the U.S. Women’s Open. She just hasn’t been able to win one. 
She has finished among the top 10 in four of the last five U.S. Women’s Open. This marks the third time Yang has played in a final Sunday pairing in one. She was with Na Yeon Choi in 2012 when Choi won at Blackwolf Run. Yang believes those experiences will prove valuable Sunday.
“It was good experience, the last two,” Yang said. “I’ll go out there and just do my best.”
Yang and Lewis got off to a dizzying start, taking turns on different ends of two-shot swings over the first two holes. Yang opened with a birdie, Lewis with a bogey. Lewis followed with a birdie at the second hole and Yang bogeyed.
There was another two-shot swing at the 14th with Lewis going from four shots back to within two.
All the while, nobody else back in the pack made a move at them.
“I was watching the leaderboards today, waiting for someone to jump up there,” Lewis said. “It just never happened.”
Lewis, 30, ranks second for the week hitting greens in regulation (44/54). Only Chun has hit more. Yang is right behind Lewis, having hit one less green in regulation.
“I felt like I hit some great shots that put a lot of pressure on her,” Lewis said. “And then she just would respond and hit it right in there with me.
“There were multiple times today that it was iffy who was away. We were hitting shots on top of each other. In a sense, it's frustrating, because you're trying to get closer but you really can't get any closer. But it's also what you want to see. I think it's great golf.”
Yang’s caddie, David Poitevent, was also on the bag at last year’s U.S. Women’s Open.
“We started poorly last year, 4 over after four holes, but one of the things I really like about Amy is her attitude,” Poitevent said. “She has a great attitude. She doesn’t get frustrated. She bounces back. She can handle adversity.”
As good as Lewis has been the last year, she has endured her own share of adversity in a year of almosts. She hasn’t won in more than a year, but she has battled into Sunday contention countless times, recording six second-place finishes and two thirds since her last victory. She lost the year’s first major in a playoff with Brittany Lincicome at the ANA Inspiration.
Lewis feels good about her swing, and so does Yang. It bodes well for another shot-making show.
“I expect more of it tomorrow,” Lewis said.
Earlier in the day Chella Choi fired a record-setting front nine of 29 on her way to narrowly missing out on the all-time tournament low round.
The South Korean struck nine birdies in a six-under 64, but missed the chance to move closer to the leaders with a three-putt bogey from 30 feet at the last.
A par on the 18th would have seen Choi tie the championship scoring record of 63 set by Helen Alfredsson in 1994, but she saw her three-foot putt curl wide.

"I made birdies a lot today, so my putting is good,” Choi said. “I’ve played really good in the last couple of weeks but I wasn’t making a lot of putts, so I changed  my putter. It feels different.”
Choi is one of four players tied on two under, including defending champion Wie and world No 1 Inbee Park, who closed a second successive 70 after completing 16 of the 18 holes in regulation. 
World No 2 Lydia Ko is in a tie for 18th after posting a one-under 69. while England's Charley Hull dropped three shots on the final five holes to slip four over for the tournament. 

Watch the final round of the US Women's Open live on Sunday from 7.30pm on Sky Sports 4 - your home of golf

THIRD-ROUND TOTALS
 Par 210 (3x70)

1 Amy Yang 67  66  69  .


202
2 Stacy Lewis 69 67 69



205
3 In Gee Chun 68 70 68



206
4 Shiho Oyama 70 66 71



207
T5 Mi Hyang Lee 68 72 68



208
T5 Inbee Park 68 70 70



208
T5 Chella Choi 71 73 64



208
T5 Michelle Wie 72 68 68



208
T9 Jane Park 66 72 71



209
T9 Min Lee 71 68 70



209
T9 Morgan Pressel 68 70 71



209
T12  Rumi Yoshiba 70 68 72



210
T12 Pernilla Lindberg 70 70 70



210
T12 So Yeon Ryu 72 68 70



210
T12 Ryann O'Toole 71 70 69



210
T12 Ai Suzuki 70 71 69



210
T12 Kris Tamulis 72 69 69



210
T18 Marina Alex 66 71 74



211
T18 Na Yeon Choi 67 74 70



211
T18 Karrie Webb 66 72 73



211
T18 Lydia Ko 70 72 69



211
T18 Jung-Min Lee 70 71 70



211
T18 Sydnee Michaels 68 74 69



211
T18 Jenny Shin 74 68 69



211
T18 Brooke Henderson 70 73 68



211
T18 Lexi Thompson 71 72 68



211
T18 Sakura Yokomine 71 73 67



211
T28 Lizette Salas 71 69 72



212
T28 Angela Stanford 71 69 72



212
T28 Q Baek 70 71 71



212
T28 Brittany Lang 70 70 72



212
T28 Laura Davies 70 72 70



212
T28 Azahara Munoz 69 72 71



212
T28 Teresa Lu 71 71 70



212
T35 Candie Kung 71 70 72



213
T35 Lee Lopez 71 70 72



213
T37 Ayako Uehara 71 70 73



214
T37 Megan Khang 71 70 73



214
T37 Erika Kikuchi 71 71 72



214
T37 Austin Ernst 68 74 72



214
T37 Charley Hull 71 72 71



214
T42 Paula Creamer 69 73 73



215
T42 Sei-Young Kim 73 67 75



215
T42 Muni He 68 74 73



215
T42 I.K. Kim 74 69 72



215
T42 Mo Martin 71 72 72



215
T42 Gerina Piller 71 72 72



215
T42 Karine Icher 73 71 71



215
T42 Kim Kaufman 72 72 71



215
T42 Mariel Galdiano 70 74 71



215
T42 Ha Na Jang 72 72 71



215
T42 Danielle Kang 71 73 71



215
T53 Lala Anai 71 70 75



216
T53 Maria Balikoeva 74 69 73



216
T53 Emma Talley 70 72 74



216
T53 Jaye Marie Green 71 73 72



216
T53 Mirim Lee 71 73 72



216
T58 Hannah O'Sullivan 72 71 74



217
T58 Alison Lee 70 73 74



217
60 M.J. Hur 73 69 76



218
T61 Haruka Morita-Wanyaolu 71 73 75



219
T61 Lee-Anne Pace 73 69 77



219
63 Elizabeth Nagel 68 75 83



226

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