Safeway Classic - 2nd Round

Anna Nordqvist (-10) leads by one going into the final round of the Safeway Classic.  Seon Hwa Lee and Ai Miyazato are tied for second at -9 while Suzann Pettersen and Michele Redman are tied for fourth place at -8.

Nordqvist combined some good putting on the back nine with a little good luck to set up perhaps the second victory of her rookie season.  After three-putting from six feet for a bogey at 7, Anna birdied 10 to tie for the lead at -9, saved par from 12 feet at 11, and drained a 30-footer for birdie at 12 to re-tie for the lead at -10.  The long par putt at the par-3 12^th came after her tee shot bounced off a rock in the creek and landed in the long grass.  Her chip to the short-sided green was about as good as she could expect and making the par putt must have felt like she had saved two shots.  Nordqvist bogeyed 14 after another poor tee shot bounced off the cart path to 30 yards right of the green but got the shot back with a birdie at 15 and parred out from there.

Miyazato had taken the solo lead with a short birdie at 10 but missed a golden opportunity at 14 when she missed a four-footer for birdie.  A bogey at 16 dropped Ai back to -9.  Two hours earlier, Lee had finished her round with a brilliant approach to 18 and a four-foot birdie putt.  Playing in the same group, Redman had birdied 15 and 16 to take the lead at -9 but a final-hole bogey dropped her back.  Pettersen closed with a back-nine 31 to draw within two shots of Nordqvist.  First-round leader Beth Bader was still within a shot until a double-bogey at 16 sentenced her to a 73, but she is only three back going to Sunday.

The cut bounced back-and-forth between even par and +1 all afternoon and it came down to Stacy Lewis playing the final hole of the day - a par would make the cut even, a bogey would make it +1 and allow 86 players to play on Sunday.  Stacy made par.  Those sitting out tomorrow will include In-Kyung Kim, Catriona Matthew, Katherine Hull, Wendy Ward, Brittany Lincicome, Helen Alfredsson, Ji Young Oh, Hee-Won Han and Karrie Webb.  Se Ri Pak withdrew before the round - after shooting 69 yesterday, she must have had a good reason.

ESPN pleasantly surprised me by starting the coverage on ESPN Classic at 5pm EDT when a WNBA game went into overtime.  The game ended about 10 minutes later but for some reason they didn't switch back to ESPN2 until 5:50.  This didn't affect me but many cable systems don't carry Classic so a great many LPGA fans were cheated out of about 40 minutes of coverage today.  Just for that, I hope tomorrow's final round goes nine playoff holes and preempts Sunday Night Baseball.

These 54-hole events do have one redeeming factor - they lend themselves to Sunday Free-For-Alls a bit more often than the 72-holers do, and this one should be no exception.  26 players are within six shots of the lead and 14 are within four.  Will Nordqvist hold on and make herself not only a strong Rookie of the Year candidate but a reasonable Player of the Year one?  Can Miyazato get her second win and jump into the POY discussion?  Can Seon Hwa Lee repeat her tendency to win when we least expect it?  Can Pettersen win for the first time in two years, or Redman for the first time in nine?  There's no live event on ESPN just before tomorrow's coverage so we all ought to find out together.