GOLF: Hannah Green soared into the top echelon of the women's Olympic golf tournament but her dreams of a gold medal may rise and fall on the weather … and the performance of world No. 1 Nelly Korda.
Green shot a superb 65 in blisteringly hot conditions at Kasumigaseki Country Club today, vaulting up the leaderboard and into the top 10 at six under par overall.
But Korda is running away with the gold medal after she shot a second-round 62 today. The American is at 15 under, three shots ahead despite a double bogey at the last hole where a birdie would have seen her shoot the magical 59.
The other complication is that the International Golf Federation has flagged to the players the possibility that the scheduled Saturday finish may now be on Friday, shortened to three rounds, because of forecast storms.
A decision will likely come tomorrow morning, but the IGF still hopes that the full four rounds can be played, possibly with an early start on Saturday.
Green is eighth, seven shots back from Korda and has a slight chance of gold even if there is only one more round. But for Minjee Lee, the other Australian who is at three under par, she would realistically need a full two rounds to have a chance and that is being optimistic.
The Australians wore icepacks between shots and on the tee boxes today after the Australian Olympic team management brought them in from the village, such was the severity of the heat and humidity.
“I felt like yesterday was just a matter of getting the rust off and it was pretty hot yesterday so I felt like it was hard to stay in the moment,” said Green. “Today I gave myself a lot more opportunities for birdie and managed to roll a couple really important putts in and it kind of just gave me some motivation and some confidence with the putter. Yeah, I hit the ball a lot better. I hit a lot more greens.”
The Perth 24-year-old made eight birdies for the day and two bogeys. Her day finished strongly, with birdie putts that rolled in from five metres at the 16th and two metres at the 17th, then a great save for par at the 18th after her pulled tee shot stymied her behind a pine tree. From there, she pitched up short of the green, wedged to two metres, and rolled in the putt for a par that “felt like making a birdie” in her eyes.
“I feel like the putt on the last could be really huge come the weekend,” she said.
Both Green and Lee said they were hopeful that the 72 holes of the tournament could be completed. “I really hope it is four, I would like two more days to get back up there,” said Green. “I feel like now that I've had a good round I can see what's capable and yeah there's no reason why I can't keep climbing.”
Lee knows that at three under par, she needs more opportunities to claw her way back. “I think if we were playing two more rounds then I could still have a chance,” she said. “But they said it might miss us, I just talked to the people inside. So fingers crossed. But I do need to pose some low scores.”
Martin Blake
