Second round play at the Amundi Evian Championship was suspended at 4.23pm on Friday due to lightning in the area, but Irish involvement looks set to end prematurely regardless.
Leona Maguire was among the early starters and an erratic first nine holes – the back nine – saw her card just two pars, mixing three birdies, three bogeys and a double, and though she’d par the opening eight on the front side, and birdie the last, she sits at +2 for the tournament and two shots outside the provisional cut line.
Stephanie Meadow was in the late wave, but after an opening +7, she’d drop two more strokes in her eight holes before play was halted as lightning moved in.
Rules officials continued to monitor the weather with the intention to resume round two once the dangerous situation had cleared safely. However, the storm continued to intensify with heavy rain, thunder and lightning. Based upon the forecast, at 6.09pm, the decision was made to suspend play overnight. The second round will resume at 7.30am on Saturday, followed by the third round which will begin at approximately 10.45am, with a two tee start.
At 12-under-par after 13 holes, Ayaka Furue of Japan holds a three-stroke lead over Australian Stephanie Kyriacou and Haeran Ryu of South Korea, after 16 and 11 holes respectively.
First-round co-leader, Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand, who held a three-way share of the overnight lead, is a stroke further back in a tie for fourth position alongside the 2018 Amundi Evian Championship winner Angela Stanford of the United States.
First-round co-leader Ingrid Lindblad of Sweden is tied for sixth with South Korean trio Hyo-Joo Kim, the 2014 champion, Mi Hyang Lee and Yu Jin Sung, who had the lowest round of the day, an eight-under-par 63.
Fellow first-round co-leader Gemma Dryburgh of Scotland lies in a six-way tie for 10th on six-under-par after nine holes, with Lauren Coughlin of the United States, South Korean trio Hye-Jin Choi, Jin Young Ko, Narin An and England’s Georgia Hall, who fought back from a rough start to card a 67, whilst carrying an injury.
She finished with a majestic eagle on the par-5 18th hole, hitting her rescue club to within 20 feet of the flag before making the putt and said afterwards, “To be honest with you, I was just trying to play golf. I’m injured so I was actually worse than yesterday, especially on the front nine. I was just trying to make contact with the ball.
“So I’m just thrilled with the way I’m playing at the moment. I’m just hoping that — I’ll see the physio in a minute and try and make it better, but that’s literally my priority, just to play today.
“My shoulder has been a bit tight for a couple weeks but no problems at all. Then in the pro-am when I was warming up, I just hit a couple and it went straightaway and locked up on me, kind of my upper back. So I only saw six holes of the course before teeing it up yesterday. My backswing has changed a bit. I’ve had to adapt and change my swing because of it. I’ve got 24 hours before I tee off again, so, yeah, should be enough hopefully.”
When play resumes, the weather forecast is for dry and sunny conditions on Saturday.
