Kraft Nabisco Championship - 2nd Round

Song-Hee Kim broke 70 for the second straight day to take a one-shot lead at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.  Karen Stupples did the same and is tied for second place at -6 with Lorena Ochoa and Cristie Kerr.  Stacy Lewis and Karrie Webb are only two shots back, tied for fifth.

Kim took the lead with a birdie at 2 (her 11^th hole of the day) and parred out from there.  Stupples set the early pace with five birdies and two bogeys.  Ochoa equaled Karen's mark with an up-and-down 70 which featured three bogeys.  Kerr posted the day's best score, a 67, despite stumbles at 14 and 15.  Lewis got home in 68 when she birdied her final hole, the 9^th.  The fifth and final player to break 70 on Friday was Angela Stanford, who broke out of her recent doldrums to card a 68 and move up to +2 T32.  With five rounds in the 60s (nine on Thursday) and 24 rounds under par (22 in Round One), Mission Hills is living up to its tough standards.

First-round leader Suzann Pettersen was struggling badly until a couple of late birdies salvaged a 73.  She's currently at -4 tied for seventh with Yani Tseng.  Three others who were among the first-round leaders fell back as well.  Vicky Hurst's 74 dropped her back to -1 T13, Na On Min's 75 has her at E T19 and Becky Brewerton's 78 (seven bogeys) kicked her all the way back to +3 T39.  The cut was at +4 much of the afternoon but it slid back to +6 by the end, allowing In-Kyung Kim, Momoko Ueda, Sherri Steinhauer, Se Ri Pak, Jeong Jang and Louise Friberg (79 players in all) to soldier on.  Those heading home include such luminaries as Ai Miyazato (a watery bogey at 18 pushed her over the edge), Natalie Gulbis, Juli Inkster (second straight MC at KNC after never missing it before), Lindsey Wright, Sun Young Yoo and Christina Kim.

The ESPN production seemed much less chaotic Friday.  Maybe these LPGA newbies used up all their material the day before?  Anyway, it felt more like a golf telecast and the oft-promoted extra coverage on ESPN360 following it was much appreciated.  Not wanting to pile on the World Wide Leader yesterday, I refrained from pointing out that their Thursday extra online coverage was not available.  The links were all directed at the UNC-Dayton NIT game.  I gave up trying after about 20 minutes.  Looks like several first-round problems got ironed out.