Ingrid Lindblad (USGA photo)
Sweden’s
Ingrid Lindblad, who is No. 2 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking ®, fired eight birdies in her first 12 holes to post a 6-under 65 at Le Golf National to pace her team into the lead through Round 2 of the 29th Women’s Amateur Team Championship.
The Swedes also used a 3-under 68 from Meja Ortengren for a day’s total of 8 under to lead Germany and first-day leader USA by two strokes at 9-under 277.
Lindblad, who shot a record 65 as the lowest score by an amateur in the first round at the 2022 U.S. Women’ Open, bobbled slightly in the stretch with a bogey on the 15th and a double bogey on the 18th but her 65 tied for the third-best second round in Espirito Santo history and is the best round of the championship.
“A round like this means a lot to the team, even if it could've been lower,” said Lindblad, the 2021 European Amateur champion who plays golf at Louisiana State University. “We’ve been talking about playing aggressively, which we tried to do today. A low round like this, especially today, puts us on top of the leaderboard and from there, we just have to keep going.”
On Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche, the USA, who are defending champions from 2018, were led by Rachel Kuehn’s 2-under 70 and an even par 72 from world No. 1 Rose Zhang, who were teammates in the USA’s last two Curtis Cup Match victories.
“Sweden has a great team,” said Kuehn, who played for the Dominican Republic with her mother in 2018. “There are a lot of teams that can go out and play well. We can’t be caught on our heels, but we haven’t shot ourselves out of it. We are looking to make a move tomorrow and finish it off on Saturday but it’s going to take some good golf.”
Germany gained a stroke on the USA on the strength of another solid and steady day from Celina Rosa Sattelkau shooting a 2-under 70 and Alexandra Fosterling contributing a 71.
“We went out from the start and stayed patient and hit all the good shots we talked about,” said German Captain Pia Gassner, who played in the WWATC in 2008 and 2010.
Japan moved up nine places on the leaderboard to fourth at 281 on the strength of a 4-under- 67 from 2022 U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion Saki Baba. Her teammate Mizuki Hashimoto shot a 1-under 71.
Chinese Taipei was fifth; Spain and Switzerland tied for sixth, with the Republic of Korea moving nine places up to eighth.
What’s Next:
Round 3 begins Friday at 8 a.m. with a two-tee start on both courses. The teams with leading scores will play at Le Golf National and the other half of the draw will play at Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche
ABOUT THE Women's World Amateur Team
In 1958 the United States Golf Association asked
The R&A to join them in sponsoring a world-wide
amateur golf team event to be played biennially
in non-Walker Cup years. Between 35 and 40
nations were represented at the first meeting
and President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented
the trophy which bears his name. The committee
of the event was to be known as the World
Amateur Golf Council and is now the
International Golf Federation. Teams of four
players from each country competed over 72
holes with the leading three scores from each
round to count. The first competition was held
between 29 nations at St Andrews, with Australia
beating the United States in a play-off. In 2002
the format changed to teams of three with the
two leading scores to count.
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