Cherry Hills Village – Michelle Wie shot 2-over-par 73 today to reach the halfway point of the U.S. Open at even par, tied with Annika Sorenstam and well in contention with two rounds to go.
Wie, the 15-year-old amateur, woke up at 4:15 a.m. to be at Cherry Hills in time to play the last three holes of the rain-delayed first round. She was 2 under after 18 holes and shared the lead.
She opened her second round with a bogey – the first of three on the day – and was 1 over going into her final hole, the par-4 ninth. There, she stuck her approach shot inside three feet and made the putt for birdie to get back to par.
Asked if she felt she could win the Open, Wie said yes.
“I feel I’m really playing well enough,” she said. “If I make a couple more putts and play consistently, I think I have a chance.” Wie was two strokes behind leader Angela Stanford, who teed off in the afternoon.
Trying for the third leg of the Grand Slam, Sorenstam also had an afternoon tee time and was hoping for a better start than Thursday, when she admitted to being nervous. She hit her first tee shot Thursday into the rough en route to a bogey and didn’t get into red numbers until her 16th hole. She gave that back with a bogey on the final hole and began her second round at even.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself,” she said. “I really want to do well here. When you stand on the tee, you know you have to hit the fairways. That’s double pressure right there. So I am just happy I found the rhythm in the middle.” Wie was the leader among the 78 players who had completed 36 holes. First-round co-leader Brittany Lang, an amateur like Wie, shot 6-over 77 to fall to 4 over for the tournament.
“It was disappointing, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it,” Lang said.
She’s not out of it. And with no low scores being shot early in the second round, Sorenstam remained well in contention, too.
Laura Davies, the 1987 champion, had a much different story to tell. She shot 84 and 81, her two worst scores in 67 rounds at the Open.
With her tournament essentially over, Davies tried to have fun, skipping a ball over the pond fronting the 17th green and grabbing driver on the first tee box, a downhill, 346-yard par-4. But she hooked that shot deep into the rough on the left side and didn’t come close to making the green, a la Arnold Palmer at the start of his famed final-round U.S. Open comeback at Cherry Hills in 1960.
