TIFFANY JOH may have finished day one of the Ladies Scottish Open with half an eye on squeezing in her favourite pastime of surfing over the weekend but it’s safe to assume that her priorities have changed somewhat now.
The American executed what she described as her finest-ever round on Thursday to take the lead on nine under par and she backed that up in impressive fashion yesterday with a four under par round of 67 to end day two top of the leaderboard with a cushion of three shots.
Joh’s putter was as hot as the weather on Thursday and she was equally on-form yesterday despite, she admitted, beginning her second round without any hopes of replicating her first-day 62 although she had, she believed, earned a bit of luck.
“I had pretty low expectations,” the world 177 said of her second round.
“I probably would have taken anything under par but on the first hole I made a 45-footer and I just started laughing. I didn’t even know what to say. So it was a really good start and I just kept rolling with it.
“I had only about one or two putts that were inside 10 feet - they were all those bombs that are just total gifts that you just never expect to make. But I did take out some recycling and I saved a lady-bird on one of the greens, so I feel like I’m putting out some really good karma points.”
Joh’s luck extends to her off-the-course life too. A cancer scare in early 2017 could have been disastrous but a stroke of luck resulted in early detection and a full recovery for the 31-year-old.
“I’ve always felt that I’m an incredibly lucky person, and it was the same case with this,” she revealed.
“I ran into a friend of mine and she said she had to get surgery for this melanoma that was on her leg. I had developed this weird, nervous habit of like touching this spot on my scalp that was underneath a ton of hair, so no one could have ever seen it. I did it whenever I was stressing out for someone and she was telling me about her own melanoma scare so I started touching that spot on my head. And all of a sudden, I made the connection and made the appointment for pretty much the next day.
“So, I was really fortunate - I caught it early and was able to treat it with surgery so didn’t have to do chemo or anything. I feel like that’s just one of those instances where I got incredibly lucky. And although the situation was really scary, I really caught the good end of it.”
Joh may have a sizeable cushion going into the weekend but there could not be a more dangerous group lurking behind her. On ten under par, world number three Ariya Jutanugarn from Thailand is tied for second spot after an excellent 65 alongside South Korea’s Amy Yang. On nine under is Germany’s Caroline Masson, one ahead of world number two Sung Hyun Park and two ahead of world number four So Yeon Ryu.
It was not, however, a good day for the seven Scots in the field with only Kelsey MacDonald and Kylie Henry making it through to the weekend. MacDonald could not replicate her first day 67 but yesterday’s 75 was enough to ensure she survived the cut mark of +1.
The 27-year-old from Inverness admitted though that she was delighted to have held things together, despite finding it hard going at times.
“Today was quite tough with the wind and there were a few tricky pin positions so I struggled a little today,” she said.
“I still hit it great, it was just that I left myself longer putts for par than I would have hoped for and missed a few short ones and when you do that, your confidence is knocked. But I can be a bit more relaxed going into the weekend.”
Catriona Matthew had carried home hopes ahead of the tournament and she gave herself a fighting chance after a first round 69. But a disappointing 79 yesterday ensured she will head home along the coast to North Berwick two days earlier than she would have liked.
And the 48-year-old was understandably disappointed in her over-par showing.
“It was pretty awful, really - I just played badly,” the Solheim Cup captain said. “I started hitting everything left. Obviously disappointing to miss the cut here, but I just played poorly today. That’s all there was to it.”
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