Morgane Metraux holds a one-shot lead at 8-under after the first two rounds at Le Golf National having carded a 6-under 66 on Thursday that featured an Olympic record front-nine 28.
The Swiss player’s back nine featured a bogey at the par-4 13th after Metraux laid up out of the deep left rough and a bogey at the par-4 15th after finding the water on her approach. She still held a three-shot lead on the field standing in the fairway at the par-5 18th but found the water again while going for the green in two.
“So there was barely any wind this morning. Perfect conditions and the course is just perfect. Like if you hit a good putt, you know it’s going to go in because the greens are rolling so well. I was really calm. I knew my game is in a good spot, and I was rolling it well. Yeah, it was actually surprisingly very calm starting the round. The difference between yesterday and today at the beginning is just the putts that fell. It just brought me confidence going forward and just tried to stay as present as I could and one shot at a time.
“The swing didn’t feel as good on the back nine, and on those short holes, if you get slightly off line, it gets really tricky. The rough is really thick and the greens are really firm. It’s not that I played worse, just one or two shots that cost me a few. The putt, for example, on 10 didn’t drop. It’s not that big of a difference but the score changes quite quickly.
“[The 18th is] a pretty large green. The wind wasn’t down too much. I thought I could stop it pretty easy on the green. I only had an iron to the green. So I actually didn’t even think about laying up. I just didn’t quite catch it and hit it a bit left and low. It hit the wood. So it was probably missing like three feet to be fine. But it is what it is. It’s fine. Only got a bogey out of it. I wish I didn’t but it’s fine. I’m still in a great position.”
China’s Ruoning Yin started with three straight birdies and kept a clean card to move into second place at 7-under.
Lydia Ko, the only golfer to win medals in both of the last two Olympics, carded a 67 and lies three shots behind followed in T4 a further shot behind by Mariajo Uribe of Colombia who is retiring from golf and wanted the Olympics to be her final competition.
Overnight leader Céline Boutier had the home crowd behind her but carded three straight 6s along the back nine for a 76 and lies in T6 five shots behind the lead.
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