A string of four consecutive birdies midway through Maja Stark’s second round gave the 24-year-old Swede a slim lead at the Maybank Championship in steamy Malaysia. Stark posted a second consecutive 6-under 66 to move to 12 under for the tournament, one stroke ahead of Marina Alex, Narin An, Wei-Ling Hsu and Haeran Ryu.
“I’ve been struggling a bit with my putting this whole year,” said Stark, “but I feel like I really had an easier time seeing the lines here than I usually do.”
With three top-10s this season, including back-to-back runner-up finishes at the Chevron Championship and JM Eagle LA Championship last spring, Stark holds the second-round lead for only the second time in her brief LPGA career.
Play at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club was suspended on Friday due to dangerous conditions at 2:10 p.m. local time and resumed at 4:10 p.m.
“We ran up 18 because we saw the clouds surrounding us,” said Stark, “and looking outside, I’m happy we did run.”
Rookie Gabi Ruffels carded a 66 to move into solo eighth. Ruffels is now two weeks into her first fall Asian swing as an LPGA member. She has four top 10s in 21 starts this season.
“I feel like at the start of the year there were a lot of, I guess, one-week breaks and not a lot of I guess two-, three-week breaks. I feel like it’s kind of been a little bit better towards the second half of the year,” said Ruffels of her schedule.
“But I feel like traveling across Asia is never easy as well. I feel like in those moments you kind of have to tell yourself how lucky you are to be doing what you’re doing, and we get to be in Malaysia, Korea last week and Japan next week. It’s pretty cool what we do.
“You know, when times get tough I just remind myself that we’re so lucky.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Sweden’s Maja Stark takes control in Malaysia at steamy Maybank Championship
