Angel Yin, looking for her first win of the season, had a wild scorecard leading her to the top spot at the halfway point of the CME Group Tour Championship.
Playing in the more difficult afternoon conditions, Yin grabbed an early birdie on the second hole, before back-to-back bogeys on three and four. On the relatively easy par 5 sixth, Yin got one of those strokes back and finished the front nine with another birdie on the shorter par 4 ninth.
On the back, Yin really started to pull away from the pack. Birdies on 11, 13 and 15 allowed her to open up a three-stroke lead while everyone else in the late window was struggling. A bogey on 16 set Yin back a bit, but she still enters the weekend at -10 with a two-stroke advantage over Hye-Jin Choi and Narin An.
Yin was hitting the ball accurate Friday for the most part, especially off the tee. She hit 13/14 fairways, which brought her total for the week so far to 26/28. While her greens hit went down in the second round, leading to a four-stroke drop off from Thursday, her excellent putter was in form with only 26 for the round.
Yin holds the two-stroke advantage over An and Choi, but may be just as concerned of the two leaders in stroke average for 2024, Nelly Korda and Jeeno Thitikul, who sit four strokes back in a T4.
Yin missed the early portion of the season with a serious leg injury, but has bounced back well, with six top-10 finishes in 19 events.
