Maineville, Ohio − Golf has been described as the ultimate mental game. The best players don’t let the pressure get to them, and don’t allow one errant shot to snowball.
World No. 15 Jeeno Thitikul, a 21-year-old from Thailand, looked to be in cruise control Saturday in the third round of the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G. She was 3-under through the front-9, added a birdie on the par-5 11th hole and when she missed, it was by a microscopic margin.
Nursing a lead atop the leaderboard that ballooned to as many as four strokes Saturday, Thitikul ran into trouble at the end of her round with back-to-back bogeys. She cleaned up those mistakes with a well-time birdie on the par-5 18th hole to build positive momentum heading into Sunday’s championship round.
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“I still think (despite the bogeys) it was a really good round of golf,” Thitikul said.
Just like she has on TPC River’s Bend, Thitikul keeps it simple. She’s now fired three consecutive rounds in the 60s and another one on Sunday could give her a second LPGA Tour victory of the season after a triumph at the Dow Championship in June.
That doesn’t mean her mindset won’t switch on Sunday. During a blistering week in Maineville, the course, which already played well for long hitters, has been extra firm. That adds extra importance on finding the fairway and setting yourself up for a nice approach shot to the course’s small greens.
Sometimes, it comes down to luck off the tee. Thitikul missed five fairways on Saturday, but felt it wasn’t from a lack of precision. The firm fairways can make any shot roll for miles into a patch of rough.
“You can’t really predict anything,” she said.
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Nor can she count on her two-stroke lead to be enough of a cushion Sunday to fend off the 18 other golfers who are double-digit strokes below par heading into the final day.
“Every player who is chasing on the leaderboard can go really low. If you can make as many birdies as you can and then just play your game − whatever it takes,” Thitikul said.
Thitikul is trying to fend off Lydia Ko, who is in second place at 14-under. Ko is trying to extend a stellar summer that included an AIG Women’s Open title at the Old Course at St. Andrews in her last LPGA Tour event. The World No. 3 also won an Olympic gold medal and secured a berth in the LPGA Hall of Fame.
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Ko has two wins and a half-dozen top 10 finishes on the tour this season and has seemingly everything working for her on the course. Ko was the only player to start the tournament with back-to-back bogey-free rounds, a streak that ended immediately Saturday with a bogey on the par-4 first hole.
She responded with four birdies and 13 pars over the next 17 holes to stay in second place, a position on the leaderboard that at one point had a seven-way tie.
“I’ve been really consistent with my ball striking,” said Ko, who added that her putting has showed up when she needed it to. “When you do give yourself so many opportunities, you feel like you’re not putting it as well as you actually are. If I keep giving myself birdie looks, at one point it’s going to fall.”
Nelly Korda falls outside of top 10
With six wins on the LPGA Tour this season, Nelly Korda entered Cincinnati as the odds-on favorite to collect another title. After leading Team USA to victory in the Solheim Cup, Korda began her Cincinnati debut within striking distance of the leaderboard’s summit with a bogey-free 67 on Thursday.
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The World No. 1 followed that with a 70 on Friday and a 69 on Saturday. At 10-under, she’s tied for 11th place heading into the final day. The opportunities were there for Korda, who at one point Saturday was in second place, but the putter cooled off on the back-9 with just two birdies and a costly bogey after a trip to the bunker on No. 17.
Can Haeran Ryu mount another comeback?
In her last LPGA start, Haeran Ryu was four strokes back entering the final day of the FM Championship before rallying to win at TPC Boston. She’ll need to follow that same formula on Sunday facing a similar four-stroke deficit at TPC River’s Bend.
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Ryu was tied for the lowest score in the field on Friday (65) but couldn’t build off that early in the third round Saturday, beginning with back-to-back bogeys. She quickly found her groove, though, finding 11-of-14 fairways and shooting four-under over the final 16 holes.
“Tomorrow is just for the birdies,” a hopeful Ryu said. “That’s the goal.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Queen City Championship: Can Thitikul hold off Lydia Ko for title?
