Rose Zhang hits from the 9th fairway on Thursday. (AP/Photo) by John Locher
BY MARK ANDERSON Updated 10:35 PM EDT, April 4, 2024
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) — Rose Zhang watched her two-stroke lead with two holes to play Thursday turn into a four-way tie for first place, the strong wind playing havoc with her and everyone else who teed off in the afternoon at the LPGA Tour’s T-Mobile Match Play.
Zhang ended the second round of the stroke-play portion at Shadow Creek with two straight bogeys, dropping her into a tie at 4-under 140 with first-round leader Sei Young Kim, Carlota Ciganda and Angel Yin. The latter two played in the morning, when warm temperatures and moderate wind created near-perfect playing conditions.
Then the expected gusts of more than 40 mph hit to provide those on the course with quite a challenge. No one with an afternoon tee time broke par.
“Shadow on its own is always a very difficult golf course and very easy to shoot over par here,” Zhang said. “With the wind, makes it tenfold a lot harder. So when I saw a little bit of the scores and the cut line, it justifies how difficult we played it today.”
The projected cut went from 5-over par to 9 over in about three hours, with 67 players making it through. It’s the highest cut line on the LPGA Tour since the 2020 Women’s British Open.
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