New Zealand Eyes Big Finish After Positive Moving Day

New Zealand posted their best team score of the tournament on moving day and eye a big finish at the 2022 World Amateur Teams Championship (WATC) in France.

Fiona Xu (Titirangi), Vivian Lu (Royal Auckland & Grange), and Eunseo Choi (Takapuna) combined for four-over at Le Golf National to move into a share of 24th in the Espírito Santo Trophy team standings at 15-over-par.

Germany leads by four heading into tonight’s round at Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche over Chinese Taipei and the US.

Xu once again led the way for the Kiwi side, shooting a one over 72 to move to three over in the individual leaderboard and share 28th place.

The team began off the tenth, and Xu struggled early making a couple of bogeys at 12 and 17 to make the turn in two over. Her fortunes changed with a birdie at one, and after a string of pars, she made a bogey at eight, followed by a closing birdie at nine to record another counting score for the team.

Playing in front of Xu, Lu got off to a fast start in her round with a birdie at 12 and played her opening five holes under par before making her first bogey at 16. Unfortunately, she’d make the turn in two over after a double at 18.

The 18-year-old Aucklander made another birdie and two bogeys coming home to sign for three over, to record the Kiwis’ second counting score of the day.

Choi shot a non-counting round of 81.

After setting out to beat her opening round at Le Golf National, the rock at the top, Fiona Xu achieved her goal and said her game felt a lot better than at the start of the tournament.

“I felt much better out there today than in round one. The game felt much more consistently, but I still feel like I’ve got better golf to play. I scrambled well and saved a lot of pars.

“I need to hit it straighter off the tee tomorrow. Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche is a lot similar to golf courses back home where the fairways are narrower and you need to hit fairways. If you hit it in the trees, it can be quite hard to get out; that happened to me on a couple of holes in the second round. It’s important to hit fairways out here,” Xu explained.

Xu’s Auckland teammate Lu said her game felt a lot better in round three.

“I felt the course played a lot easier than the first round. The wind helped on the longer holes, however, the pins were cut in some tougher spots but if you hit fairways, you were still able to attack most of them.”

Although the team is out of title contention, they still want to finish strong and make New Zealand proud.

The third team member, Choi, says they’ll go out all guns blazing in their final round tonight.

“I think we just need to go for it tomorrow and see where we end up. We have nothing to lose.”

The team tee off at Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche tonight. Choi leads the side away at 6pm NZT, with Lu and Xu to follow at 6.11 and 6.22pm.

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