Eighteen holes to history.
Jennifer Kupcho followed her first-round 68 with a second-round 71 on Thursday and leads the Augusta National Women’s Amateur by one shot.
Kupcho, who opened the inaugural event on Wednesday morning with the tournament’s first tee shot, will be among the last to tee off in Saturday’s final round.
The 2018 NCAA champion started on No. 10 on Thursday and birded 11, 17 and 1 and had bogeys on the fifth and eighth holes.
The Wake Forest senior leads Mexico’s Maria Fassi, a senior at Arkansas, who shot a second-round 70. Fassi had an eagle, five birdies and five bogeys in an up-and-down round on Thursday.
SCORES: Augusta National Women’s Amateur leaderboard
Pimnipa Panthong, Sierra Brooks and Kaitlyn Papp are T-3, two shots back.
There were just six scores below 70 over the first two days of the event, held at Champions Retreat in Evans, Ga.
The cut was made at 3-over and only the top 30 players advance to the final round, but after two rounds, there was a sudden-death playoff between 11 players for the final 10 spots.
Editor’s note: Story will be updated at conclusion of the playoff.
Alexa Pano, 14, followed her first-round 77 with a 71 on Thursday but it was not enough, as she missed the cut by one shot.
Atthaya Thitikul shot a second-round 69 but it was not enough to overcome her first-round 79 as she, too, missed the cut by a single shot.
All 72 players in the field will participate in a practice round on Friday when the action shifts to Augusta National Golf Club.
