Reigning World Women’s Championship winner and World No.1 golfer Park Sung Hyun stayed firmly at the top of the leaderboard with a bogey-free 66 on day two of The Country Club Ladies Invitational. She leads by four strokes ahead of Asian Games gold medalist, local heroine Yuka Saso.

Saso registered a 4-under 68 today at The Country Club in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, Philippines in front of warm crowd support. It will most likely be a two-woman dual in the final Friday as Princess Mary Superal, third player in the race, was ten shots off the lead on 1-over par. Superal registered a 1-over 73 in the second round.

Winner on the previous leg on the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour (LPGT), Dottie Ardina is the third home girl inside the top-5 on the leaderboard. Lee Ji Hyeon of Korea used a 1-under 71 to race into a tie for fourth with Ardina.

The 36-hole cut was made at 14-over with 67 golfers making the final round of the TLPGA Tour and the LPGT co-sanctioned event, which features one of the richest top prizes in the LPGT history, with the winner to be taking home $17,500, part of a total purse worth an unprecedented $100,000.

Scoring conditions on The Country Club layout were difficult this week, but Park, fresh off an LPGA Tour victory on Sunday in Singapore, used the first-round to tune herself, came up with solutions, and showed the field how it was done as she carded six birdies, zero blemish, in text book fashion.

Her precise wood and iron shots continue to create scoring opportunities; what’s different from Wednesday was her putter. She improved her performance on the greens with five fewer attempts, needing just 28. She made it on 12 of 14 fairways along the way.

A huge press pack followed and greeted the new World No.1 with passion, along with a big following of local and international fans trying to witness the beauty of Park’s top-notch techniques that won her two LPGA Tour majors.

Playing alongside Park, 17-year-old Yuka Saso showed no sign of nerves and kept toe-to-toe with Park on the outward nine today, taking just one step wrong on the par-4 fifth but picked up four birdies, as many as Park made.

On the back nine today, Saso’s level dipped just a little, however, not able to score after a fifth birdie on par-3 11th but had made the 26-year-old Korean super impressed.

“She’s such a big hitter, so young and so talented,” Park praised Saso. “We’re going to see a lot of her in the future.” The teenager was the first Filipino golfer ever to win an Asian Games medal.

Taiwan’s Lin Tzu-Chi (林子麒) had a solid day one and came into Thursday just two shots back of lead, but she quickly found herself in trouble as she bogeyed her first hole.

She dropped four shots in three holes on the 15th to 17th and had a 77, pushing her back to equal sixth place and 13 shots away from Park.

Lin’s only birdie today was on the par-3 third hole where she made it from 15 yards, but she was overall playing “too safe” on the greens, needing 32 putts, six shots worse from round one.

“I was playing okay from the tees and on fairways, but couldn’t read those putts as well as I could,” said Lin, who felt tension in her knee that limited her swing. “I’m going to have a look and make sure I come back tomorrow in better shape, and hopefully, I can play to my day one standard and finish in the top-3.”

Starting the day as high as Lin, Wu Hsiao-Ling (吳曉玲) took a freefall after a disastrous second-round 85, sliding down into a tie for 43rd at 156.

Lee Hsin (李欣) shot 76 as she closed in on the top-10. She was off to a slow start, making four bogeys on the back nine (her first nine holes) and never quite found her pace with one bogey and one birdie on the bottom half of the game. The Taiwanese is at 6-over 150 and T11. Chen Hsuan (陳萱) sits with another shot behind in equal 15th place.

This tournament is the third leg of the 2019 TLPGA Tour season. Final-round play begins at 6:40 a.m. Friday morning. The Leaders’ group will be on the first tee at 8:30.