High-flying Patty 'In her own world'
Unheralded Thai won't get ahead of herself, seeing year's first Major as just another event
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Thai golfer Patty Tavatanakit putting in the second round of the ANA Inspiration in California on Friday. She is trailed closely by eight Major champions.
PHOTO: REUTERS
LOS ANGELES • Patty Tavatanakit has never won on the LPGA Tour. Before this week's ANA Inspiration, she had never held a 36-hole lead either.
But the 21-year-old maintained her advantage on Friday at the year's first Major championship and could become just the second Thai to win one of golf's biggest prizes after 2016 Women's British Open and 2018 US Women's Open champion Ariya Jutanugarn.
"I didn't want to take it the way that like, 'Oh, I'm leading a Major championship'," the UCLA graduate said after recording an eagle while shooting a three-under 69 in the second round at Mission Hills Country Club's Dinah Shore Tournament Course, leaving her at nine-under 135.
"I just wanted to look at it as it's another round, it's another tournament, even though it's a big tournament."
With eight Major champions close behind and compatriot Moriya Jutanugarn - Ariya's sister - two strokes back, the world No. 101 will need to continue to focus on her game, and not on the magnitude of the event or the reputations of those chasing her.
She remains one ahead of China's Feng Shanshan (69), the Women's PGA Championship winner in 2012 who has not competed for more than a year.
England's Charley Hull (69) and Sweden's Anna Nordqvist (70) are tied for fourth at six under in Rancho Mirage, California.
New Zealand's Lydia Ko (69), Germany's Sophia Popov (69), England's Georgia Hall (70) and three South Korean players, Park In-bee (69), Mirim Lee (70) and top-ranked Ko Jin-young (70) share sixth place at five under.
"(I'm) pretty confident, but nothing too, you know, getting ahead of myself," said Patty, who won three times on the Symetra Tour in 2019 before her rookie LPGA campaign last season was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
"I don't want to do that. That's a red flag right there... Just keep doing what I'm doing and... stay with the present. I been doing that pretty well today. Just listening to different kind of sounds out there and just being in my own world."
While Patty - fifth in the 2018 US Women's Open, while still an amateur - can overpower a golf course, Moriya knows she has to stay patient as she seeks her second LPGA title.
"I'm not a long hitter so I just have to take what I can and just try to play smart and put myself into places I can have a good chance," said the 26-year-old Bangkok native.
101
World ranking of Thai golfer Patty Tavatanakit, surprise leader for the first two rounds of the ANA Inspiration.
Michelle Wie West, competing in her first Major championship since the 2019 KPMG Women's PGA Championship and giving birth last year, missed the cut after shooting 79 on Friday to finish at five-over 149. The former teen prodigy's only Major win was the 2014 US Women's Open.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
ANA INSPIRATION
Round 4: StarHub Ch204, tomorrow, 5am
