The Lotte Championship will crown a ninth different winner in its 10th edition Saturday — unless defending champion Lydia Ko can make up a 10-shot deficit and pass 32 golfers in front of her in two rounds.
The odds against that are astronomical, even for the third-ranked player in the world. Ko shot 3 over par for Thursday’s second round after 3 under on Wednesday.
The two other former Lotte champs who entered are out of the event. Brooke Henderson (2018 and ‘19) withdrew after a first-round 74 due to injury and Cristie Kerr (2017) missed the cut with 74-76 for 6 over.
Min Lee is still in there, tied for 17th at 2 under. But no, that’s not Minjee Lee, the 2016 winner, who did not enter this year’s Lotte.
Hyo Joo Kim’s first two rounds were eerily similar. She made five birdies both days with no bogeys; on the rare occasion she didn’t get on in regulation she found a little magic.
“It was nice to make it from outside the green. I missed (the) green yesterday and today, but I made once each day,” she said.
Kim’s overall track record at Lotte is nearly as consistent as her first two rounds this week.
Of the ten players who have entered all ten tournaments since Lotte’s debut in 2012, only Kim and Chella Choi have made every cut.
Inbee Park — whose five Lotte top 10s include two runners-up — was in that group before Wednesday’s first-round 80 led to her first missed cut at this event. Choi, who is tied for 25th at 1 under heading into the third round, finished tied for fifth in 2014 and T4 in ‘15.
Kim tied for ninth in ’13, and fourth in ’14, posting 10-under par overall both times. Last year at Kapolei Golf Club she showed she could go really low, but so did lots of other golfers, and her 16 under was good for just T17.
Six of those 10 players with perfect Lotte attendance missed the cut Thursday, including the household names Park and Kerr. Danielle Kang’s pre-tournament withdrawal was another hit to the tournament’s star power.
And, this is the second Lotte without Michelle Wie West, who has put the clubs away for at least a while for motherhood.
But there is a big bright spot for local golf fans, as the only Hawaii golfer in the field made the cut.
Allisen Corpuz — like Wie West, a Punahou product — followed her first-round 2-under 70 with a 72 on Thursday, and is tied for 17th heading into the third round.
If Kim should hold on and win it could bode well for the future of the tournament, considering she is sponsored by Lotte.
“As such, I really want to play well with responsibility,” she said Wednesday.
