Auston Kim followed up her opening 1-under 71 with an even-par 72 on Friday morning after a quick turnaround for the late-early groups at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship.
Through her 36 holes, she stands at 1-under par and in striking distance of the leaders. She also finished her round in second in the field in driving distance, a huge advantage on what’s becoming some firm and fast conditions at PGA Frisco.
Overall, the 24-year-old American is content with where she stands as the leaders play this afternoon.
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“I’m feeling pretty good. Feel like my game today was a lot steadier. Definitely hit again a couple bad shots today, but feel like I was playing pretty smart,” Kim said after her second round. “I played the my percentage plays over and over again. I had a lot of lag putts, but I feel like I gave myself good chances to make par. Again, like my mindset today was just staying in it. I didn't really feel like I had hit any superhuman shots. I didn't want to.
Not only is Kim driving the ball far this week, but she’s also hitting fairways at an impressive rate. She made four bogeys on Thursday due to being out of position, but Kim seemed to right the ship more on Friday, and added to that with some stellar iron play the currently has he tied for fifth in that department for the week at seventy-five percent of greens hit.
“I didn't have to chop it out of the rough today like I did yesterday. I think that's just a testament to how smart I was playing,” Kim said.
After a late finish on Thursday evening, Kim described the quick turnaround for her 7:49am tee time a bit for Friday’s second round.
“The course was a lot harder. It was a quick turnaround for us. I think just not getting enough sleep unfortunately and then the heat, waking up super early and dealing with twice as much wind and firmer greens and longer rough was just a really big challenge today,” Kim said. “And I mean, it felt just as hot even though we tee'd off earlier. Yeah, a lot of tough things to deal with today, but I knew that if I just stayed patient and tried to take it one shot at a time. I know the round was over five hours, I knew we were just going to be here all morning, so just one shot at a time and stay patient.”
We’ll see how her patience holds up in the heat this weekend as the field expects to face temperatures of 94 and 95 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday.
