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Honolulu’s Michelle Wie took a big tumble down the leaderboard today with a 4-over 76 that dropped her to 2-over 146 and a tie for 31st place at the RICOH Women’s British Open played at Royal Birkdale Country Club in Southport, United Kingdom.
Wie is 10 shots behind first-round leader Yani Sang, who shot her second consecutive 68 today for a two-round total of 8-under 136. Crisite Kerr is among three others tied for second at 4-under par.
After opening with a 2-under 70 yesterday that left her only two shots off the lead, the Punahou School graduate got off to a slow start with a double bogey at the par-4 first, a hole she bogeyed in the first round.
The 20-year-old Stanford University student got one shot back with only her second birdie of the tournament at the par-3 fourth. She bogeyed the final hole of the front nine and then carded another bogey-5 on the opening hole of the back as the downward spiral continued.
A double bogey at the par-3 12th dropped her into a tie for 60th and in real danger of missing the cut. Wie parred the 13th and 14th to right the ship a bit. Three of the four closing holes at Birkdale are par 5s, giving the long-hitting Wie a chance to stay around for the weekend.
Just like she did in yesterday’s opening round, she carded a five at the par-5 15th and a four at the par-4 16th. Yesterday, she closed on a high note with a birdie-4 and an eagle-3 at the back-to-back par-5s.
Today, she had a par at the 17th and birdied the 18th to move into a tie for 40th with just a handful of golfers still on the course.
For Wie, this followed a similar pattern to last week at the Evian Masters, where she shot an opening round 68 only to follow that up with a 77.
Wie has missed the cut only once in 12 previous starts. She is currently 12th in the world and 21st on the money list with $283,784. Wie has only three top 10s and no wins midway through her 13th tournament of 2010.
