A 2020/2021 Epson Tour rookie Lucy Li (Redwood Shores, California) fired a third round 4-under par on moving day at the Casino Del Sol Golf Classic. She climbed six spots on the leaderboard and goes into Sunday eight strokes back from the lead and tied with Yaeeun Hong (Seoul, Republic of Korea), Gigi Stoll (Beaverton, Oregon), Casey Danielson (Osceola, Wisconsin) and Roberta Liti (Siena, Italy).
“I started hitting my wedges really tight. I had a two-putt birdie on the par-5 eighth, but I hit four wedges in a row within 6-feet. I actually missed one on twelve to make it five in a row,” said Li. “I was just hitting my wedges really well which helped.”
Last season, Li claimed five top-15 finishes in nine starts. Her career-best finish on the Epson Tour is solo second at the 2020 Epson Classic. The 18-year-old said she’ll draw on memories from last year in hopes to find her way back into the Race for the Card.
“I had a lot to learn from last year. I played really well but I was really really close at quite a few tournaments and I think I ended up being only a few shots off of the top-5 last year. There’s a lot to learn from there that I worked on during the off season especially my putting.”
NOTABLE QUOTES
Ruixin Liu (-10, 3) on going low during the final round tomorrow:
“Overall pretty good on the wind today. For tomorrow though Morgane is so far away. Still going to try and catch her. I don’t know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, so I am just going to try and shoot my best score out of the four days and see what happens.”
Casey Danielson (-8, T4) on importance of finding momentum early in the season:
“I think I definitely have a lot of build off of and I think it’s just taking the good and assessing the bad to get a little bit better, but it definitely gives my confidence to see contention early on in the season and I hope to continue that as the season goes along.”
Yaeeun Hong (-8, T4) on keeping her focus on finishing on the Epson Tour top-10:
“The first day was a really good but yesterday I felt bad. I missed a lot of greens, so it was a really tough day for me. Today I think it was pretty nice during moving day so one day left so I have to keep going. I am feeling really good right now so I am excited to play in bigger tournaments, but my focus right now is to finish on the top-10 of the Epson Tour this season.”