Apr. 3—EVANS — A record pace cooled. A chase for history continues. Experience showed. And the cream rose to the top.
Up next? Augusta National Golf Club.
Defending champion Lottie Woad and Kiara Romero share the lead at 9 under, with three players a shot behind and two more just two back, through two rounds of the Augusta National Women's Amateur. All 32 players who made the cut for Saturday's final round at Augusta National are under par, another tournament first.
Day two wasn't quite as leisurely of a jaunt around Champions Retreat Golf Club, with some tougher pin positions yielding fewer scoring opportunities. Patience was rewarded, and world No. 1 Woad (70) again carefully navigated her way around the grounds with only one bogey on her scorecard for the second day in a row.
"I think the pins were definitely a lot harder, so I had to adjust a little bit on that," she said. "Some holes you kind of had to play away from a little bit whereas yesterday I feel like I could really attack every pin. So I had to be a bit more patient today."
Woad, a junior at Florida State, is looking to become the first multi-time winner in ANWA's six-year history. She started the day two behind Megha Ganne (73), who set a new tournament record with her opening-round 63, and wasted little time overtaking her.
"I knew I was going off earlier than Megha, so I just thought if I could maybe get a few birdies to start I could kind of show that I could catch her," she said, "and managed to do that on — I started on the back nine, not the best front nine after that, but it was OK."
Romero, a sophomore at the University of Oregon who is No. 5 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, has gone from missing the cut in her ANWA debut last year to sharing the 36-hole lead. She made seven birdies in a round of 68, and the 19-year-old showed championship-level poise in overcoming a potentially disastrous bogey-double bogey skid late in her round to birdie her final three holes.
"I feel like I have a lot more control over the mental side of it," she said. "I had a double and a bogey back-to-back on 4 and 5 (her 13th and 14th holes of the day), so I didn't let that get to me at all. I actually ended up with birdieing the last three holes. So I feel like that kind of shows the way my game has matured from last year."
A shot behind Woad and Romero are Ganne, Kansas State's Carla Bernat Escuder (68) and Stanford's Andrea Revuelta (66). Ganne came back to the field after her record-setting first round, but she didn't view it as the grind that the scorecard showed it to be.
"It was a lot of good stuff. Hit a lot of really good shots," said Ganne, who bounced back from a 2-over front nine to work three birdies around two bogeys on the back. "Didn't hit anything that I wasn't like super like upset about, but just wasn't in great position. Handled it really well. Tried to create momentum within holes and grinded it out for what I thought was a pretty good 73."
Bernat Escuder, a senior from Spain, is at 8 under after her second consecutive 4-under, capped by a birdie-birdie finish. Her countrywoman Revuelta, a freshman, jumped into the fray after a near-perfect round that included only one bogey against seven birdies.
"I think my game has been really, really good yesterday and today," she said. "I think that yesterday it was a great round. I mean, 2 under is pretty good. But I think that I did play better than that and my game was ready. I just had to stay patient for today, and today it happened. It really reflected on how my game is right now. I'm really happy about that."
Two shots back sit another Stanford Cardinal, Swedish junior Meja Örtengren ...
