Royal Lytham & St Annes has a habit of testing the front-runner and rewarding whoever recovers best from the hole that goes wrong, and on Friday it was Haeran Ryu who did the recovering. Two over par after five holes, having bogeyed the third and doubled the par-three fifth, the world number three might easily have let the round drift. Instead she played her last thirteen holes in five under, closing with a ten-foot birdie at the last for a two-under 69 and the outright lead at the halfway point of the AIG Women’s Open.
It is worth pausing on how she got here. Ryu arrived at Lytham having won the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine at the end of June and then the Evian Championship in a playoff a fortnight later, beating Brooke Henderson at the first extra hole. Two majors in thirteen days is the kind of stretch that tends to happen once in a career, if it happens at all, and it has put her within one round of a distinction shared by only three players in the modern history of the women’s game. Win at Lytham and Ryu becomes the first golfer since Inbee Park in 2013 to take three majors in a single season, and only the fourth ever.
She will not have it easy. Shiho Kuwaki set the clubhouse target early on Friday afternoon, following her opening 66 with a one-under 70 that included a birdie at the long par-five sixteenth, and for a spell she looked to have done enough to lead outright. Kuwaki, the top-ranked player on the LPGA of Japan Tour, has quietly built one of the more complete résumés in the field this week: a putting stroke that holds up under pace, and a short game that has bailed her out of the two or three loose tee shots each round tends to bring at Lytham. She sits second at six under, one adrift of Ryu with two rounds to play.
Behind them, Jeeno Thitikul’s tournament has taken the shape so many major bids do: brilliant, then merely good. Her opening 64 broke the AIG Women’s Open course record in fifty stagings at Lytham, seven birdies and not a bogey in sight, and it put her two clear of the field overnight. Round two brought her back to the pack. Three bogeys in a two-over 73, including one at the par-five eleventh where a putt for par slid by, dropped her to five under, tied with American Yealimi Noh and a further two shots off Ryu’s pace. Thitikul remains without a major title despite eight LPGA wins and a spell at world number one, and the manner of Friday’s round, still technically sound, just short of the spark that carried Thursday, will be a familiar frustration to her for a player of her calibre.
Further back, the leaderboard has plenty to hold attention over the weekend. Lottie Woad and Charley Hull both posted level-par 71s, each picking up two bogeys in their last five holes, and sit five off the lead as the two home hopes with the clearest path back into it. Nelly Korda, grouped with Ryu for the first two rounds, could not find her rhythm on the greens and returned a 73 of her own, leaving her needing a low weekend simply to be part of the conversation on Sunday.
What makes Lytham such an honest test is that it rarely lets a leader coast. The closing stretch runs into wind more often than not, the bunkers are positioned to catch anyone playing safe rather than anyone playing bold, and the rough this week has been thick enough to turn a promising tee shot into a blind pitch. Ryu’s front nine on Friday, three over through five, is a reminder of how quickly the round can turn on a player who has otherwise looked untouchable all season. Her back nine, five under from there, is the reason she is still favourite to finish the job.
Two rounds remain, and history rarely arrives without a fight along the way. Ryu will start Saturday’s third round in the final group, aware that Kuwaki, Thitikul, and a chasing pack including Woad and Hull all have a route back into the tournament if her putter cools even slightly. On the evidence of the first two days, though, betting against her has not been a profitable exercise in 2026.