Leona Maguire and Jennifer Kupcho hit the front at the Dow Championship

RTÉ News​

8 hours ago

Leona Maguire and American Jennifer Kupcho put together a 10-under-par 60 on Friday to vault into the Dow Championship lead.
Friday served as the second round of the LPGA Tour's lone team event, with the first round using the four-ball (best ball) format. Thursday and Saturday are played in foursomes (alternate shot), and Sunday's final round will return to best ball.
Kupcho and Maguire improved to 13-under 127 for the tournament, one ahead of first-round leaders Gemma Dryburgh of Scotland and Cassie Porter of Australia. Dryburgh and Porter posted a 62 to stay in contention.
Three teams are tied for third at 11 under: China's Yan Liu and Yahui Zhang(62); Sarah Schmelzel and Switzerland's Albane Valenzuela (61); and Belgium's Manon De Roey and France's Pauline Roussin-Bouchard (61).
Maguire had an early highlight when she holed an eagle at the par-four 12th, her team's third hole of the day. She delivered the better ball much of the day and most of the team's scores were thanks to the Cavan player, who made four birdies coming in.
"The plan today was just to give ourselves as many chances as we could, try toget two chances on every hole," Maguire said.
"For the most part, we did that.It was nice to start off with a birdie and sort of an eagle very early on toget the ball rolling. Jen made a nice birdie on 18 to sort of keep themomentum going through the turn."
Kupcho won the 2022 Dow Championship with Lizette Salas and she finished runner-up last year alongside Ally Ewing.