Wichanee Meechai would not assume she’s assured. She’s main the U.S. Open anyway.
Jack Hirsh/GOLF
LANCASTER, Pa. — Saturday may have gone very in another way for Wichanee Meechai.
Such is golf. Miss a putt right here, get a nasty bounce there. Anyone who has performed golf is aware of how shortly some unhealthy luck can flip an 89 right into a 94, a 79 into an 84, a 69 right into a 74.
The latter is what may have occurred to Meechai and maybe it’s what was anticipated. She almost admitted as such. The 31-year-old from Thailand is in the midst of her ninth LPGA season, however nonetheless may not have been a reputation even a few of the most avid ladies’s golf followers have been aware of earlier than this week. She’d by no means completed higher than T5 on the LPGA Tour and hadn’t gained anyplace in the world since 2015.
If Meechai had pale from rivalry Saturday, falling sufferer to a brutal Lancaster Country Club setup after torching it the first two days with rounds of 69 and 67 to take the lead, nobody would have batted an eye fixed.
But as a substitute, she battled and he or she’ll enter the remaining spherical of the U.S. Women’s Open tied for the lead with Minjee Lee and Andrea Lee at 5 below.
It wasn’t fairly at instances — there have been many one-handed finishes and lengthy appears for par — however by making 5 par putts from exterior 4 ft, she fairly actually turned 74 into 69.
Sounds loads like a really assured participant, however that’s not Wichanee Meechai, a minimum of in keeping with Wichanee Meechai.
“I’m the person who has no confidence at all,” she stated in a really candid press convention Friday afternoon. “I never think that I’m good enough. I never think that I can win tournaments on the LPGA, but … if I can stay in my place and I just keep working hard as I can … I think it’s going to show up one day.”
Clearly, the laborious work has proven up this week as Meechai and Minjee Lee are the solely two golfers in the area to interrupt 70 on daily basis this week.
But even after posting the 69 that gave her a share of the lead going into Sunday at a serious, she doubled down on her supposed lack of confidence.
“To be honest, yesterday I thought about missing the cut because I used to be in this position,” Meechai stated. “Like the first day I play pretty good, and then the second day I just [shoot] like 80s and missed the cut by one. I cried a lot. I never think that I’m going to be on the leaderboard or something like that. But it’s great.”
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Yet, on Saturday, a assured and resilient participant plodded her approach round Lancaster Country Club.
She birdied the first gap, drilling a putt from 22 ft proper in the middle of the cup with excellent velocity, not even touching the again of the gap. After 5 straight pars, she hit it into the coronary heart of the inexperienced at the par-5 seventh in two and two-putted to get to 6 below for the event.
Then the spherical may have gotten away from her. She hit it lengthy of the tenth inexperienced and made bogey. She did the identical on the tough par-3 twelfth, leaving her second shot from simply off the inexperienced 10 ft quick, above the gap.
As her enjoying accomplice, Andrea Lee, stroked her birdie putt, Meechai stood in the middle of the inexperienced and seemed on, away from the gap, away from the water guarding the inexperienced, away from the lots of of followers who had flocked to observe the remaining pairing on a U.S. Open shifting day.
She was alone.
Jack Hirsh/GOLF
In that point, she discovered her focus.
“I just feel like, okay, it’s going to be very downhill, and you just give the break and putt it,” Meechai stated. “Just focus on it, and I made it.”
Her focus ended up being precisely what propelled her to play her final six holes in even par and preserve her place atop the leaderboard.
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“I think my focus on the game was pretty good today,” she stated. “I hit a lot of bad shots, but, you know, like I don’t have any bad thoughts about my swing or about the result at all. I’m just staying in my zone and trying to keep going and then be patient.”
Her endurance was examined all day Saturday, particularly when her group was placed on the clock after the twelfth gap, however she responded every time she needed to.
She drove it in jail on 4 and 16, however got here again with magical restoration photographs each instances. That took confidence.
She ran off to the thirteenth tee when her group was placed on the clock. She seemed assured.
She responded to a bogey on 14 by lacing a tee shot and throwing a dart for an strategy at 15 for a birdie. It was a assured stroke.
Meechai could not assume she’s assured, nevertheless it’s laborious to guide the U.S. Open for those who’re not. Should she grow to be the first qualifier since Birdie Kim in 2005 to win the U.S. Women’s Open, she in all probability gained’t lack confidence for much longer.
