[PHOTO: Getty Images]
Minjee Lee and Hannah Green believe a medal is still possible despite drifting outside contention after the second round of the Olympic women’s golf tournament in Paris.
Lee started round two within touch of the lead, six shots behind, but a two-over-par 74 left her at one-over for the tournament and nine shots off the pace at the halfway point. Swiss golfer Morgane Metraux (66) leads by one over Chinese golfer Ruoning Yin while New Zealand great Lydia Ko sits third at five-under.
Lee bogeyed the first hole and then made a double-bogey 5 at the difficult par-3 second and never truly recovered. She will have her work cut out climbing back into contention for a medal over the weekend. No Australian, man or woman, has ever won a medal for golf at the Olympics since the sport returned to the Games in 2016. Still, only six shots outside Ko in third place, Lee’s medal hopes are very much alive.
“I felt like starting today, even warming up, I felt pretty good,” she said. “But you never know with golf. Sometimes it doesn’t quite suit your eye, even though I played practice rounds and the first round. It doesn’t help when you’re trying to claw back. I think I was trying to keep it together, it was nice with the birdie on 18. I’ve got a few things to work on and hopefully I can turn it up for the weekend.”
Lee’s fellow Australian and Perth golfer, Green, improved her total by two shots with a 70 on day two to move to three-over. Some damage was already done with a five-over 77 on day one, but Green is also hopeful of a huge weekend charge towards a medal.
“Yeah, much cleaner scorecard; only missed a couple of fairways,” Green said. “I only missed a few greens today. A much better ball-striking [effort]. I was a bit frustrated [with putting], and the only birdies I made today were three-footers. Feels like I still have a lot of [good] golf left in me [this weekend].”
But Green refused to throw in the towel for her and Lee. She backed their experience – Green a major winner and Lee a two-time major champion – to be an advantage over the weekend.
“We are not really out of this championship. Yes, maybe gold is maybe out of reach but obviously we’re still trying to get a podium finish,” she said. “A lot of the players – well, there are some players on the leaderboard that haven’t had that type of pressure, and everyone, no matter how well experienced or how many wins on tour they have had are going to feel that pressure.
“I feel like, yeah, I can go for it and be aggressive as possible.”
