Inbee Park is On the Move in Malaysia

By Elizabeth Bethel | Oct 9, 2015

Inbee Park did what she typically does during the first round at the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia: she delivered a competent game of golf and carded a bogey-free 68. Her putter wasn’t doing its usual magic — she needed 31 putts to get around the Kuala Lumpur track — but she remedied that on Friday when she shaved six putts off her second round, carded a 66 and moved right on up the leaderboard.

It wasn’t the low round of the day. That belonged to Ha Na Jang. A quick look at her stats show that the rookie seems to have both her long game and her short game dialed in this week.

With six top-10 finishes that include runner-ups at the Coates Golf Championship, the Marathon Classic and the Cambia Portland Classic, 18th ranked Jang is due to notch her first Tour victory soon. She has a slight advantage right now as she’s going into moving day a shot clear of Xi Yu Lin and a lead of 2 shots over Park, Yani Tseng and Alison Lee, who are sharing third place. Given Inbee Park’s pattern of competition, emphasis should be placed on the word slight.

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That’s not much of a lead over Park, often described as the Silent Assassin because of how she overtakes the competition. Once she gets her game under control Inbee Park is lethal. She’s not especially long off the tee — her drives this year are averaging 248 yards — but she’s deadly accurate and doesn’t make many mistakes.

Park ranks 6th on the Tour in getting to greens in regulation, 2nd on the Tour in putts per GIR (1.75) and 11th on the Tour in overall putting average (29.22 putts), so she’s playing well above her own stats right now in Kuala Lumpur. I’m looking for her to put those stats to work on Moving Day and crank out a game that will put her in direct contention for the lead.

And how are Park’s usual competitors doing right now? Lydia Ko carded a 2nd round 65 — she seemed to get her game dialed in as well — and is going into the weekend at 6-under par, trailing the lead by four shots and only two back of Park. She’ll start moving as well in the 3rd round.

And what about Stacy Lewis, number 3 in the Rolex rankings? Lewis is at 4-under. With rounds of 72 and 66, Lewis seems to be having trouble getting her A game going, but with a low round on Saturday she could still easily jump start things and get herself back into contention.

You can follow the 3rd round action at the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia tonight on the LPGA electronic leaderboard or you can wait until Saturday, 11am-1pm ET for the Golf Channel recap of the round. Jang, Lin and Park are paired, so in either case we can watch Inbee Park do what she does best, take over the round and dominate the tournament.

What about a Sunday Shootout between Inbee Park and Lydia Ko? That’s looking more and more likely at this point in the Sime Darby.

Next: LPGA's Fall Asian Swing: A 5-Event Snapshot

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