\n<\/p>\n
World number one Jeeno Thitikul carded a nine-under-par 63 to open up a three-shot lead after two rounds of the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old from Thailand made four consecutive birdies either side of the turn in her bogey-free round to reach 14 under overall in Florida. <\/p>\n
Thitikul is aiming to win the most lucrative tournament in women’s golf – which has a top prize of $4m (\u00a33.1m) – for a second consecutive year.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s Kim Sei-young is at 11 under, while Japan’s Nasa Hataoka is a shot further back along with first-round leader Somi Lee. <\/p>\n
Home favourite Nelly Korda, who struggled on Thursday, is also firmly in contention after surging up the leaderboard with a 64. <\/p>\n
The two-time major champion, who has not won an event this season, made nine birdies including three in her final four holes to end Friday in a tie for fifth. <\/p>\n
Korda said some minor adjustments to her putting made the difference after she managed just three birdies on the opening day. <\/p>\n
“On Thursday I was just missing by centimetres,” Korda said. “They were burning edges, lipping out. <\/p>\n
“This has been kind of the common theme this year. I feel like I played so much better than my score has shown.<\/p>\n
“So I honestly just went to the putting green for five minutes and simplified it.”<\/p>\n
Denmark’s Nanna Koerstz Madsen is the highest placed European at eight under with England’s Charley Hull frustratingly making three bogeys alongside six birdies in her round of 69.<\/p>\n
It leaves England’s Hull at six under – eight shots adrift of Thitikul – with her compatriot Lottie Woad at five under.<\/p>\n
The LPGA’s concluding event of the season carries a total purse of $11m (\u00a38.4m).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
World number one Jeeno Thitikul carded a nine-under-par 63 to open up a three-shot lead after two rounds of the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. The 22-year-old from Thailand made four consecutive birdies either side of the turn in her bogey-free round to reach 14 under overall in Florida. Thitikul is aiming to win<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}