With patience a key virtue, Ewing, Grace make moves at Meijer
By Jeff Babineau
BELMONT, Mich. – When Ally Ewing made double bogey on the 10th hole of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give on Thursday afternoon, she was 2 over par, with no birdies to show on a golf course that was giving up plenty. So much for Blythefield Country Club extending its warm and welcoming hug, a summer tradition in Michigan to rival Kid Rock and fresh-water fishing.
That’s OK. There isn’t much that knocks Ally Ewing down for very long. A late eagle would help her scrape out a respectable opening 70. On Friday, roughly 24 hours later, Ewing was talking about holding the lead, and entering the weekend chasing her fourth LPGA title. That’s how quickly golf can flip the script.
Ewing had made so many birdies at Blythefield on Friday that she lost count of them at one point, so she just shrugged her shoulders and kept making them. She birdied her first two holes and her last two holes, and sprinkled in some great golf between, shooting 9-under 63, the low round of the tournament. She even made eagle at the 466-yard eighth for the second consecutive day. Thursday, she hit driver and 8-iron to 3 feet; Friday, it was driver and 5-iron short of the green, then a holed chip. You have to love variety.
Ewing’s 63, which included only 24 putts, was one of 12 bogey-free rounds on the day.
“Honestly, at one point I wasn’t really sure what I was (under par), so I was just kind of focusing on each shot, each hole,” Ewing said. Her Friday play moved her from 33rd place at the Meijer all the way into a tie for the lead.
Ewing made seven birdies to go along with the eagle, taking advantage of good scoring conditions in the morning wave. Enough wind stuck around in the afternoon to keep other pursuers away, and Ewing and Australian Grace Kim (65) moved into the weekend sharing the lead. Both players are 11-under 133 through two rounds, two shots better than Denmark’s Nanna Koertz Madsen (64) and Korea’s Narin An (68).
Thirteen other players will enter the final two rounds within four shots of the lead. That group includes two-time Meijer champion Brooke Henderson (69) and 2023 U.S. Women’s Open champion Allisen Corpuz (68), both of whom are at 8-under 136, as well as 19-year-old Alexa Pano, who shot 7-under 65, the low round of Friday’s afternoon wave. Pano will start Saturday four shots behind the leaders.
Joining the group of golfers headed to weekend play were past champion Lexi Thompson (68), who won the Meijer in 2015 and is 120 under par in her long career at Blythefield; Lilia Vu (70), the World No. 2, who is making her first start since March after being sidelined by recurring back injuries; and first-round leader Alison Lee, who shot 72 on Friday.
Missing the cut by a shot was World No. 1 Nelly Korda, who simply dug herself too deep a hole Thursday to escape. Korda, 25, did her best to rebound from an opening 76, which marked her worst round at Blythefield by four shots. She birdied four of her first five holes to start the second round, but her 67 on Friday came up one shot short.
“Didn’t play too bad,” said Korda, who has now missed the cut in consecutive starts after missing the weekend at the U.S. Women’s Open in Pennsylvania two weeks ago. “Just a tough week.”
Ewing, 31, still is carrying the momentum earned from her third-place finish at the U.S. Women’s Open, where she tried to come from behind by posting a good early closing round on Sunday, when she shot 66. Her tie for third was her best finish since tying for fourth in the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in Orlando.
“I think anytime you get a good finish in any tournament, much less a major, you just see good golf for four days, (it) definitely helps your confidence when you carry it over,” Ewing said.
“The golf ball doesn’t know what I did last week – but it’s still important to attack it, but also have confidence with it.”
Kim is only 23, and is seeking her second LPGA victory after winning early in the 2023 season, winning the LOTTE Championship in Hawaii. Late in May, she put herself in great position to win her second title at the JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro, starting 64-66 at Los Angeles’ Wilshire Country Club. But the pressure of the lead, coupled with a difficult golf course, got to her on the weekend. Kim shot 76-77 and slid to a tie for 25th.
She learned from the experience, though. Always learning.
“Just really trusting my game,” she said after Friday’s 65. She made six birdies, took a step back with a bogey at the difficult par-4 17th, and bounced back with an eagle-3 at the par-5 18th. It was the perfect response to her only bogey of the round.
Into the wind on 18 – the complete opposite wind from Thursday – Kim hit a drive that trickled into the rough. The ball was sitting up, and she knew that when she struck it the ball was likely to “knuckle” on her, so she made sure to reach for an extra club.
“I hit 5-wood, and yeah, miraculously, went 8, 9 feet by left, so made the putt,” Kim said. “The greens are rolling pure, so just take your chances that way.”
Kim played in the group directly behind Korda, Henderson and defending champion Leona Maguire, which gave her an incredible front-row seat to watching the crowds that a No. 1 player such as Korda attracts. It was a valuable scene for the young Aussie to witness.
“Just seeing all those people come out, support all the girls out here, is just incredible, and a great experience for us to make it more enjoyable,” Kim said. “Hopefully, they’re enjoying it as much as we are ... it’s just spectacular.”
Eighty-one players survived the cut (low 65 and ties) on Friday and will move on to the weekend at Blythefield. The cut fell at 2-under 142. Friday’s scoring average: 71.09.
In addition to Korda, the cut claimed several players inside the top 40 in the CME Race to the Globe standings, including Minjee Lee (78); 2024 LPGA winner Bailey Tardy (71); Janet Lin (72); and Linnea Strom. Strom was hotter than any other player coming in, having won the ShopRite last Sunday with a final round of 60. On Friday at Blythefield, she shot 75, missing the cut by three.
