Dottie Ardina moved up the leaderboard following a solid three-under-par 69 in the Four Winds Invitational at the South Bend Golf Club in South Bend, Indiana Thursday.
The 28-year-old finished 36 holes on 4-under 140 and led two other Filipinas — Pauline del Rosario and Clariss Guce — who made the cut.
Ardina opened with eight straight pars before closing stringing up three birdies from 9 to go 3-under.
She countered a lone bogey on 13 with another birdie on 14 before rolling home with four straight pars.
She missed only two fairways and saved par on all but one of seven missed greens to share fifth place.
Del Rosario shot even par to end a string of five missed cuts in the Epson Tour.
She mixed three birdies with the same number of bogeys to complete two rounds on 2-under 142.
Clariss Guce was right on the cut on the number on 2-over after carding a 74. She had two birdies against two bogeys and a double bogey.
Chinese Yan Liu was the leader on 9-under after a roller-coaster 71.
While she’s excited to have her name on the top of the leaderboard, Liu realizes there’s still a job to be done.
“I’m a professional golfer,” Liu said with a smile.
“I need to do professional things.”
Liu walked off the course today 9-under for the tournament. She carded five birdies on her round, which balanced out her two bogeys and a lone double bogey to start her day.
“Golf is sometimes hard and sometimes easy,” Liu said.
“Today was hard, but yesterday was easy for me.”
Liu plans to keep a similar mindset to her first two rounds for the final 18.
She focuses on her shots, and her game and tries to stay patient as much as possible.
“Golf is a long game,” Liu said.
“We have five hours on the course. I just try to relax and stay patient.”
Two strokes behind Liu, in solo second, was Gabby Lemieux. The Idaho native put together a 6-under round, the low round of the day, to be in contention at 7-under.
“It feels like a long time coming,” Lemieux said.
“I’ve missed a lot of cuts over the last five events. To go from basically the bottom to the top, knowing that I’ve put all this work in, I feel like I’m still there. It’s nice to see it all come together.”
Lemieux went bogey-free on the front nine and carded seven birdies on the day. Her plan for the final round is to do it all again.
Selena Costabile and Roberta Liti were on 6-under and 5-under following 70 and 71, respectively.
Tied with Ardina were Kim Kaufman (69), Michelle Piyapattra (70), Pinyada Kuvanun (71), and Vivian Hou (73).
