Lee has first bogey-free round, takes four-shot lead at KPMG

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Two-time major champion Minjee Lee took over the lead with the first bogey-free round for anyone during a windy week at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, a 3-under 69 in the third round Saturday to move four strokes ahead of Jeeno Thitikul.

Lee got to 6-under 210 after beginning the round three strokes behind Thitikul, the world's No. 2-ranked player who led alone at the end of each of the first two days. 

Lee, the Australian who lives in nearby Irving, went in front with a two-foot par at the 405-yard 12th hole when Thitikul had her second consecutive bogey, and fourth of the day en route to a round of 76. 

Far from tree-lined Sahalee outside Seattle where the Women's PGA was last year, Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco is much more open and exposed to the ever-present Texas wind that was the strongest it had been all week. There were gusts of more than 30 miles per hour Saturday, with much the same forecast for the final round. Temperatures were again around 30 Celsius.

Nelly Korda, the world's top-ranked player, described the conditions as “just brutal” after her round of 72 that began with back-to-back bogeys but ended with two birdies down the stretch. She had five birdies and five bogeys and is tied for sixth at 2-over 218.

Lee and Thitikul were the only players still under par. Lexi Thompson (75), after a triple-bogey start, was tied for third at 1 over with Hye Jin Choi (72) and Miyu Yamashita (73).

Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., is tied for 15th with two others at 4 over — 10 shots back of the leader.

Thitikul had the only birdie Saturday among the 78 players on the 172-yard, par-3 eighth hole, which generally plays downwind and where only 29 per cent of the tee shots all week have stayed on the green. That 13-foot birdie was her first of the day and got her to 5 under, two strokes ahead of Lee. 

But Thitikul's lead was gone after back-to-back bogeys on the back side. She pushed a four-foot par chance past the hole at the 383-yard 11th, her first miss inside five feet this week. Then her drive at the 417-yard 12th hole went way right into a penalty area, and Lee went ahead to stay. 

Lee, who won the 2022 U.S. Women's Open and 2021 British Women's Open, was steady Saturday with eight consecutive pars before a 4-foot birdie at the 487-yard ninth hole. Her other birdies were an 18-footer at the 515-yard, par-5 14th and a 1 1/2-foot at the bunker-surrounded 236-yard par 4 15th hole. 

Thitikul had her third bogey in a four-hole stretch when three-putting from 50 feet at No. 14. 

Semi-retired Thompson, in the second-to-last group, hit her tee shot into the fairway on the 517-yard par-5 first hole, a 207-yard drive into the wind. But she topped her second shot that went only 117 yards, indicating to her caddie that the wind had her off balance, and then shanked her next shot right, a ball that was never found for a penalty on way to triple bogey. She followed with another bogey on the second hole, but had two birdies and only one bogey the rest of the way.

Thompson, playing for only the seventh time in 16 tournaments this season, won her only major in the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship, but her 13 top-five finishes in majors since 2013 are the most by any player and among her 20 top-10 finishes in those events. 

LPGA rookie Rio Takeda opened with a bogey 6 at the first hole after starting the round tied with Lee for second place. Takeda later had a pair of double bogeys, including the 315-yard par-4 7th hole where her drive wound up in the upper face of a greenside bunker that left her with an awkward stance and unable to get the ball out on the first try. 

Grace Kim had the best round of the day with a 68 that included six birdies and two bogeys, moving up from a tie for 68th to tied for 10th. Minjee Lee and Andrea (71) had the only other under-par rounds.

Kim, among the 11 players who got to the weekend right on the 7-over cut, teed off at 6:55 a.m. local time, six hours before the final group of Thitikul and Lee went off the first hole.

There was even a hole-in-one, Brianna Do acing the 150-yard fourth hole. It was the third in the last four years in the Women's PGA.

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