Yu Jin Sung, the soon-to-be 23-year-old playing on a sponsor’s exemption, won’t let herself think about winning.
Georgia Hall, the 27-year-old English golfer who has finished runner-up in the past two LPGA events, is only thinking about winning.
The approaches might all be different, but the goal is the same for everyone near the top of a bunched-up leaderboard heading into today’s final round of the LPGA Lotte Championship at Hoakalei Country Club.
Sung, who held a share of the lead with rookie Natthakritta Vongtaveelap at the midway point, never fell out of it shooting a 1-under 71 to take the solo lead into the final 18 holes off her third career LPGA event at 9 under.
Hall, who is a combined 18 under par in her four tournament final rounds this season, is one of three golfers a shot back at 8 under after shooting 71.
Nasa Hataoka, a six-time LPGA winner, is part of a quartet trailing by two shots at 7 under.
Even two-time winner Brooke Henderson, who is in a group of five three shots back at 6 under, is in contention in a wide-open event with varying experience levels.
“I haven’t really thought about the winning part,” said Sung, who would earn her LPGA Tour membership and a spot in next week’s first major of the season with a victory. “There is still a day left in this tournament. Again, not really thinking about winning but just trying to show my best golf game.”
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It was a struggle for the last groups of the day, with nobody able to gain any real separation. All eight golfers within two shots of the lead failed to shoot in the 60s.
Grace Kim, who made the cut for just the second time in her young career, worked her way into a share of the lead with back-to-back birdies to open her back nine.
She bogeyed the par-4 14th and then needed two impressive pars on 16 and 17 to keep her round from getting away from her. She managed to get up and down from the left-side bunker on the challenging par-4 17th, where the tournament could be won or lost today.
“It was a tough scramble. I wasn’t expecting to miss the greens on both holes, but yeah, I think it was a big relief on both holes to just be able to make that up and down,” the 22-year-old from Australia said. “I think I’ve just got to maybe sharpen up my shots into the green.”
Park will tee off in the final group with the leader, Sung, and Hall, who again has put herself in position to claim her third career LPGA title.
In her past two tournaments, Hall lost in a playoff to Celine Boutier at the LPGA Drive On Championship in Gold Canyon, Ariz., then missed a birdie putt on 18 to lose by a shot to Ruoning Yin at the DIO Implant LA Open in Palos Verdes, Calif.
In her three previous appearances in the Lotte, she’s never finished better than T35.
“I hope it’s third time lucky, right? We’ll see what happens,” Hall said. “I’ll just give it my best like every event this year. Obviously (it’d) mean the world to me to get my first one of ’23.
Hall will have a decided experience advantage over Park and Sung, who combined have played just six LPGA events. The three will tee off last at 11:40 a.m.
“I mean, I’ve never been called a veteran at 27,” Hall said. “It’s not just like a normal round. There is a lot of people watching.”
Three-time LPGA winner Christina Kim, who won her first event when she was 20, is among the quartet of golfers two shots back.
Kim started doing some work recently as an announcer and analyst, but didn’t have a prediction for how the young up-and-comers would fare today against the experienced past winners.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said with a laugh. “It’s hard to say. I was that inexperienced young pup my rookie year. My first victory was when I was 20 years old. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Golf is like life. There is no rhyme or reason to anything. It’s all backwards.”
