Buick Championship: Shanshan Feng & Na Yeon Choi Battle for Lead

The Buick Championship looks to be a fight to the finish for Shanshan Feng and Na Yeon Choi.

The Buick Championship is looking like a battle between 2 international golf stars, Shanshan Feng and Na Yeon Choi. The pair carried their 2nd round shot-for-shot battle into the third round at the LET‘s Buick Championship.

Playing in cloudy and blustery conditions at Shanghai Qizhong Garden Golf Club, Feng and Choi ended as they began, tied for the lead.

Choi led for most of the day before making bogey on 18 to slip back into a share of the lead with Feng on nine-under-par.

The pair began the third round tied but after a two shot swing on the second hole, followed by a birdie for Choi on the fourth, the 29-year-old South Korean established a three stroke cushion. She maintained it for another 12 holes as both she and Feng birdied the ninth and the 11th. But the wind – gusting up to 25 mph – eventually took its toll and the world number 18 lost her groove on the back nine in tough conditions.

"“I think I played really well, especially on the front nine. I had three birdies out there and without a bogey. I think I was a little tired on the back nine.” – Na Yeon Choi"

Choi bogeyed 13 before Feng picked up a stroke on 15. Then, on the par-4 18th, Choi uncharacteristically three-putted.

World number 10 Feng, with 14 career wins including three in China, admitted that she’s felt a bit nervous this week. She’s the defending champion, playing in her sponsor’s event, playing in front of Chinese fans who are expecting her to win. Combined, that made for a shaky start to the round.

Shanshan Feng recovered her composure with a bit of self-talk:

"‘You know what? I’ve done well for the first two days and so why not just do the same thing, just focus on every shot,’ and I came back slowly. I made a good back nine and I’m happy about the result.” – Shanshan Feng"

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The Buick Championship is by no means a two-way race to the finish. Just two strokes behind the leaders in third place, Beth Allen, the 2015 ISPS HANDA Ladies European Masters champion from the USA, made an excellent birdie putt from 25 feet on 15 before adding another on 17 to keep pace. The 34-year-old Californian said: “It was a solid day with tough conditions, and a completely different wind to yesterday. It was tricky.”

Meanwhile Florentyna Parker, who led for the first three rounds of the Lalla Meryem Cup last week in Morocco before finishing as the runner-up, is only three shots from the lead in fourth place. She is a stroke ahead of fellow Englishwoman Georgia Hall (71), who shares fifth with China’s Wei Wei Zhang on five-under-par and England’s Liz Young, who tied for ninth place last week in Morocco, is in solo seventh place followed by six players on three-under-par.

Local fans are relishing a final round duel between two of Asia’s hottest golfing properties in Choi and Feng, but with heavy rain and possible winds gusting up to 30 miles per hour expected on Sunday afternoon, the second edition of the Buick Championship is still wide open.

Next: Inbee Park's Lessons from the Links

North American fans can watch a delayed broadcast of the Buick Championship 3rd round on Golf Channel today – Saturday, May 14 – at 4:30pm ET.

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