Royal Lytham & St Annes has spent three days at this AIG Women’s Open handing out low rounds and then, without much warning, taking them back. On Saturday it was Haeran Ryu’s turn to find that out. The halfway leader, chasing a third consecutive major that no one has managed since Inbee Park in 2013, went from five clear of the field to needing a big final round after six bogeys in an afternoon that turned Moving Day into something closer to chaos. The player who benefited most was Yealimi Noh, who has one LPGA title to her name and was seven shots off the pace before lunch.
Noh’s 69 was built almost entirely on the back nine. She bogeyed the par-five seventh to slip further behind, then reeled off three birdies in a row starting at the par-three ninth, added another at the tenth from twelve feet, and kept finding fairways and greens through a closing stretch that has bitten harder finishers than her this week. A birdie at the sixteenth was the one that mattered most: by the time she signed for her card, the player who started the day seven back was three clear with eighteen holes to play, at seven-under 206.
Some of that has come from unlikely places. Noh has put a new driver in the bag this week and used it sparingly but well, sitting eighth in driving distance and tied twelfth for fairways hit at seventy-six per cent, numbers that suggest something has clicked off the tee that wasn’t there a few months ago. Her putting has held up just as well with a broom-handle putter, ranking joint-second in the field for putts per round. She has missed fourteen major cuts since 2022 and arrived at Lytham on her sixth appearance in a women’s major, her first in England. None of that reads like the resume of a third-round leader in a major, which is exactly why Saturday was worth watching.
Ryu’s Round Got Away From Her
Ryu had looked, for two and a half rounds, like a player who was not going to be caught. She carried a one-shot lead over Shiho Kuwaki into Saturday, extended it to five with back-to-back birdies at the third and fourth, and was playing the kind of controlled, low-mistake golf that had already delivered her the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine in June and the Evian Championship in July, the latter sealed with an 11-under 60 that remains the lowest round in LPGA major history. Then the bogeys started. Five of them arrived in an eight-hole stretch beginning at the seventh, and by the time she reached the clubhouse she had carded a three-over 74 that dropped her into a tie for second at four-under, three shots back.
She was honest afterwards about what went wrong and what needs to change. “I will keep calm and hit the ball a little lower and avoid the bunkers,” she said. “Hopefully tomorrow I do better than today.” It is a modest enough plan for a player who has won the last two women’s majors in succession, but Lytham has made modest plans look like the right ones all week. Just nine players broke par in the third round, and Ryu’s six bogeys were as much a symptom of the course’s teeth as any specific fault in her own game.
The Rest of the Field Is Still Very Much Alive
Ryu is not alone in the group three back. Esther Henseleit had the round of Moving Day, going from level par to four-under with a bogey-free 67 that earns her a place in Sunday’s final pairing alongside Noh. Jeeno Thitikul, who opened the championship with a course-record 64 and still has no major title despite eight LPGA wins and a stint at world number one, added a two-over 72 to sit in the same group as Ryu, Kuwaki and Lucy Li. Ayaka Furue, the 2024 Evian champion, produced the best round of the day, a six-under 65 with an eagle and four birdies, though it leaves her needing a similarly low finish to have a realistic route into the final pairings. Further back, Lottie Woad sits a shot behind the chasing group and Charley Hull is five off the pace, both still with something to play for on a course that rarely lets a five-shot gap feel safe.
What Sunday Actually Decides
The stakes on the final day are as clean as major golf gets. Win, and Ryu becomes only the fourth player in the modern history of the women’s game to take three consecutive majors in a season. Win, and Noh claims her first, on a course that has spent three rounds proving nothing here comes easily. Everyone in the group within four shots of the lead has a genuine reason to believe Sunday is theirs, and after a Saturday that turned the leaderboard over almost by the hole, believing that would not be unreasonable for any of them.