NAPLES, Fla. — Patty Tavatanakit delivered the birdie putts and Jake Knapp stored their UCLA workforce in entrance with one large par save after one other, main them to a 6-under 66 within the harder foursomes Saturday and a two-shot lead within the Grant Thornton Invitational.
Tavatanakit holed a pair of 12-footers late on the entrance 9 at Tiburon Golf Membership. When their video games obtained off monitor, Knapp made a collection of testy par putts that stored the momentum going.
They have been at 20-under 124, two photographs forward of Tom Kim and Jeeno Thitikul within the unofficial occasion that pairs gamers from the PGA Tour and LPGA. Thitikul received the CME Group Tour Championship and its $4 million prize final month, and he or she holed a troublesome bunker shot on the par-3 sixteenth to maintain them shut. They’d a 64.
Akshay Bhatia and Jennifer Kupcho (68) have been three photographs behind.
Knapp and Tavatanakit each went to the UCLA, although he was a couple of years forward of the Thai.
“It was a grind,” stated Tavatanakit, who received an LPGA main as a rookie on the ANA Inspiration. “We’re two good grinders. It’s enjoyable to have the ability to do it, being out of place and saving par and changing birdies once we needed to.”
Tavatanakit had two large moments late within the day of occasional rain. She holed an 18-foot birdie putt on No. 16 to interrupt a tie with the “Tom & Jerry” workforce — Thitikul goes by “Jerry” this week as a tribute to the favored cartoon.
On the par-5 seventeenth, Knapp missed nicely to the appropriate with a 6-iron. With a small chunk of mud on the golf ball, Tavatanakit hit a wonderful pitch over the sting of a bunker and downhill towards the cup, working it some 4 toes by to arrange birdie.
The ultimate spherical Sunday can be modified fourball — each gamers hit tee photographs, after which they play the opposite golf ball by the completion of the opening.
Defending champions Lydia Ko and Jason Day had a 67 and have been inside 5 photographs.
