Paula Reto consolidated her position on Friday with a second-round two-under-par 70 to reach the halfway stage of the LPGA Tour’s LPGA Mediheal Championship in Somis, California in second place on her own.
Reto made five birdies and three bogeys to move to seven-under-par for the tournament, four shots off the lead which was set by Jodi Ewart Shadoff of England. The leader carded a second-round 69 to add to her opening 64. Reto was one stroke clear of seven players in a share of third on six-under-par.
Reto started her round on the 10th, and made a bogey on her opening hole. A pair of birdies on 14 and 16 sandwiched her second bogey which came on 15, and she turned in level-par. She made three birdies after the turn, on two, four and five, but she made her third bogey on six, and she finished up with pars on the final three holes.
“Trying to eliminate bogeys around here is quite hard,” said Reto of the challenging Saticoy Club layout. “Visualizing shots and being able to put them in the right spot is probably more important than usual, and trying to play the par-fives a little bit better. I’m going to try and do that for tomorrow.”
It was her accuracy in the second round which prevented her from scoring as well as she might: She hit only 10 of 14 fairways after hitting them all in the first round, and she hit half of the 18 greens in regulation after hitting 13 on Thursday. Her putting was better in the second round, however, and she took just 24, after having 26 in her opener.
“You just have to read the greens properly,” said Reto. “It’s so hard to get the right read, and yesterday I had a couple of good putts and a couple good looks, short looks, which helped that. Today, there were not as many short looks for me, but here and there, I made a putt.
“So if I put some extra time on the putting green today I feel like I can give it a run tomorrow and Sunday for sure.”
Behind Reto, Lee-Anne Pace missed the cut after carding a four-over-par 76 to finish on seven-over.
