Heavy Rain was the responsible for the suspension of play during the second round of the inaugural Blue Bay LPGA tournament, being played at the Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Course in Hainan Island, China. The orifinal tee times for Friday has already been pushed back more than two hours due to poor weather conditions.
The first threesomes that went out, Group 1 of Lizette Salas, Christina Kim and Austin Ernst, and Group 2 of Mi Hyang Lee, Yu Liu and Mo Martin were able to complete only six holes before play was called for the day at 12:19 p.m local time.
Play has been scheduled to restart on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. But more heavy rain has been forecasted for the weekend and tournament officials announced that the tournament has been trimmed from 72 holes to 54 holes. The on-going second round is scheduled to be finished on Saturday and the now final third round to be played on Sunday.
On Thursday, Jessica Korda, a two-time winner this season fired a first-round six-under 66 to take the early lead. She remains on top, the threesome that the 21-year-old was playing, along with Jodi Ewart Shadoff and Brittany Lang, were the last group scheduled for Friday and had not taken the course yet.
Ewart Shadoff and Lang, are among a group of six close pursuers of Korda just one shot back at five-under in a tie for second place. Michelle Wie, Chinese star Shanshan Feng,South Africa's Lee-Anne Pace, and Germany's Caroline Masson were the other four in that group.
Neither had taken the course either so far on Friday.
Brittany Lincicome and Moriya Jutanugarn were among the early movers on Friday and joined the seven-player tie for eighth place at four-under. Lincicome, who shot an opening-round 70, is two- under through four holes, while Jutanugarn, who carded a 69 on Thursday, is one- under through two holes.
They joined Danielle Kang, Cristie Kerr, Chella Choi, I.K. Kim and Dewi Claire Schreefel, who all shot four-under 68 on Thursday’s first round. Neither of the four had teed off on Friday.
TV TIMES THIS WEEK
The airtimes for the Blue Bay LPGA are as follows:
- Oct. 24 11:30 p.m. - 3:30 a.m. (Golf Channel)
- Oct. 25 11:30 p.m. - 3:30 a.m. (Golf Channel)
All times listed are Eastern.