NAPLES, Fla. — Patty Tavatanakit delivered the birdie putts and Jake Knapp saved their UCLA workforce in entrance with one large par save after one other, main them to a 6-under 66 within the tougher foursomes Saturday and a two-shot lead within the Grant Thornton Invitational.
Tavatanakit holed a pair of 12-footers late on the entrance 9 at Tiburon Golf Membership. When their video games acquired off monitor, Knapp made a sequence of testy par putts that saved the momentum going.
They had been at 20-under 124, two pictures forward of Tom Kim and Jeeno Thitikul within the unofficial occasion that pairs gamers from the PGA Tour and LPGA. Thitikul received the CME Group Tour Championship and its $4 million prize final month, and she or he holed a troublesome bunker shot on the par-3 sixteenth to maintain them shut. They’d a 64.
Akshay Bhatia and Jennifer Kupcho (68) had been three pictures behind.
Knapp and Tavatanakit each went to the UCLA, although he was a number of years forward of the Thai.
“It was a grind,” mentioned Tavatanakit, who received an LPGA main as a rookie on the ANA Inspiration. “We’re two good grinders. It’s enjoyable to have the ability to do it, being out of place and saving par and changing birdies once we needed to.”
Tavatanakit had two large moments late within the day of occasional rain. She holed an 18-foot birdie putt on No. 16 to interrupt a tie with the “Tom & Jerry” workforce — Thitikul goes by “Jerry” this week as a tribute to the favored cartoon.
On the par-5 seventeenth, Knapp missed nicely to the fitting with a 6-iron. With a small chunk of mud on the golf ball, Tavatanakit hit a wonderful pitch over the sting of a bunker and downhill towards the cup, working it some 4 toes by to arrange birdie.
The ultimate spherical Sunday can be modified fourball — each gamers hit tee pictures, after which they play the opposite golf ball via the completion of the outlet.
Defending champions Lydia Ko and Jason Day had a 67 and had been inside 5 pictures.
