American Lilia Vu carded a second-round 66 to take a share of the lead in her first appearance at the AmazingCre Portland Classic making four birdies in her first five holes and an eagle at the par-5 7th.
“It feels pretty good to be in contention here. The course it a little tighter. It’s not as long, but definitely tight off the tee,” she said. “I think I do have good course management and I just know that sometimes going for the green isn’t always something I’m comfortable with. So, I’m completely fine laying up, and then I feel like I can make a birdie from anywhere.”
Two-time LET champion Esther Henseleit of Germany carded five straight birdies from the 2nd and tied American Andrea Lee for the low round of the day with an 8-under 64, earning a share of the lead for the second time this season. She held a first-round lead during the Honda LPGA Thailand in March.
“To be honest, it’s just great to be here at the moment. I had some pretty rough bumps since Thailand, and it’s great to see something coming your way,” said Henseleit. “It’s just felt like nothing really came together. I’ve been working really hard and felt like every part of my game has been improving but couldn’t really get the scores together. Kind of around the cut line every week; pretty hard mentally if you do that every week. So, yeah, just good that today kind of happened and I didn’t have to fight too hard for it.”
Spain’s Carlota Ciganda lies in solo third place after a second-round 66. Her form has been good recently finishing T10 at the Dana Open and T13 at the CP Women’s Open as well as three more top-10 finishes in 2022 and two top-20 finishes.
“I’m putting great, so I think if you can keep the speed going, I think, yeah, can go low during the weekend,” she said. “I’ve been playing good lately, so it’s nice to be at the top again. I would love to win a tournament before the end of the year, so that’s my goal. I’m going to try to do that. Keep playing my best, keep playing the strategy that we have with my caddie, and yeah, just keep making birdies.”
Overnight leader Ayaka Furue of Japan carded a 69 and moved down into a share of fourth place at 8-under alongside Andrea Lee (64), Sweden’s Maja Stark (67), Ecuador’s Daniela Darquea (67) and China’s Weiwei Zhang (67).
Oregon native and Columbia Edgewater member Caroline Inglis carded a 70 and lies in a share of 10th place at 7-under. She aced the par-3 13th from 143 yards with her 8-iron and was particularly excited about earning her first ace as a pro at her home course in front of a large gallery of locals.
“I hit it kind of not very good, like it was thin. I was like, okay, it’ll bounce up. That’s fine. It took a really big first bounce and just like went in,” she explained. “I was so shocked like that it actually happened at my home course on a hole that I played so many times. And there were so many people. Like so many of my family, friends, and members out here watching that it was like such a loud roar. It was really fun.”
