Alison Lee and Ruoning Yin lead the US Ladies’s Open by a stroke on four-under-par on the halfway level of the yr’s second main.
Los Angeles native Lee, who missed all 5 majors in 2025 as a result of she was on maternity depart, posted a three-under 68 at Riviera Nation Membership.
She is taking part in on the USGA’s deferred maternity depart exemption, a coverage which supplies a participant who has earned a spot in a USGA championship the choice to defer her place.
China’s Yin carded a second successive 69 in a bogey-free spherical.
First-round leader Jennifer Kupcho and Japan’s Hinako Shibuno, winner of the 2019 British Open, are amongst a bunch of six gamers in joint-third on three-under.
World primary Nelly Korda is one in all 4 golfers at two-under, having shot up the leaderboard with a 67, the bottom spherical of the day.
Lee, whose 13-month-old son Levi watched on the course along with her companion, has completed within the prime 10 twice in 44 main appearances.
“I really feel like I simply did a very good job at grinding these final couple of days,” the 31-year-old mentioned.
“The entrance 9 [in the first round] – I imply, in the event you instructed me within the entrance 9 I might be main going into Saturday I might have thought you have been loopy as a result of I missed a bunch of fairways and I missed a bunch of greens.
“It is so thrilling. My first couple years on tour, [there was] most likely a whole lot of stress. I imply, my rookie yr was 2015.
“Now to have the ability to play in entrance of family and friends is basically particular.”
Yin, whose sole main win got here in 2023 on the PGA Championship, mentioned: “I had a whole lot of stress at this time.
“It is US Open, it is meant to be robust. You’ll be able to’t actually have a stress-free second on the course till it is all performed.
“I believe the stress and the stress, it is also a privilege.”
After underperforming on the first day, American Korda held her nerve to shorten the hole on the leaders.
“I simply tried to have a very easygoing perspective at this time,” mentioned Korda, who won the Chevron Championship in April.
“I used to be positively going to depart all of it on the market and grind as a lot as I may, however I used to be not going to emphasise my errors an excessive amount of and simply form of play relaxed golf.
“That is once I play my finest golf.”
England’s Bronte Legislation, Mimi Rhodes and teenager Nellie Ong have been amongst these to overlook the reduce alongside Swede Madelene Sagstrom, competing whereas seven months pregnant.
Weeks after winning her second LPGA title in Cincinnati, England’s rising star Lottie Woad sneaked by to the weekend after a birdie on the sixteenth moved her above the reduce mark – one stroke behind compatriot Charley Hull.
