The Opening Ceremony at the 2024 Olympics in Paris dazzled on Friday but some of the golfers heading to the Games have some business to take care of first in Canada.
There are 23 Olympic golfers in all competing this week at Earl Grey Golf Club in Calgary.
That includes Hannah Green, who is set to represent Australia alongside Minjee Lee. Green vaulted up the leaderboard Friday to take the clubhouse lead after the morning wave at the 2024 CPKC Women's Open. The lead flipped in the afternoon round when Lauren Coughlin posted a 70 to get to 6 under and maintain her solo lead through 36 holes.
The top of the leaderboard features several prominent names, including Lydia Ko, whose season started hot but has featured several cool weeks since. With one more win, Ko becomes a Hall of Famer and she heads to the weekend three shots off the lead.
Here's a closer look at some things you need to know about the lone LPGA event north of the border.
First-round leader Lauren Coughlin is now the second-round leader.
Coughlin backed up her Thursday 68 with a Friday 70 to keep pace as she seeks her first LPGA win. She opened her second round with three birdies on her first five holes. She then stalled a bit, carding five straight pars before making bogey on 11. She closed with seven straight pars as she battled the course and the conditions.
"It was obviously very windy out there, a lot of crosswinds, which they can be a hair hurting, a hair helping depending on what quarter you're getting," she said. "Also with the elevation and how far the ball is going, it was really hard to judge how far the ball was going to end up going. I felt like I was hitting shots really good and how I wanted to, and they would just go.
"Like on 11, like I still don't know how that 54 went that far. Should have been dead nuts into the wind and it just wasn't. It went further than normal actually. So just like little things like that."
Coughlin fell short of the U.S. Olympic squad but is in great shape to make the U.S. Solheim Cup team in September.
Hannah Green is seeking her third LPGA win in 2024 in a third different country. She won the HSBC Women's World Championship in Singapore in February and then in Los Angeles in April at the JM Eagle LA Open at Wilshire Country Club. Green is the only LPGA golfer besides Nelly Korda, who has six, to have more than one win in 2024.
Green hasn't had the strongest season in terms of success at the majors -- her tie for 16th at the U.S. Women's Open being her best outing -- but a third win would be a big boost before she heads to Paris for the Summer Games.
"I guess most of us are pretty much treating it as our sixth major championship this year," she said. "I am getting in on the Saturday. We have a Wednesday start for the women, so I'm not getting in super early because I didn't want to over-prepare and feel mentally that I'm already a bit drained throughout the week.
"So, yeah, getting in Saturday. Going to watch the men over the weekend and then obviously get ready. But I have not been to the Golf National before. I didn't go there before Evian to go and play the course. I've seen a little bit on TV. I probably will try and watch some replays and see as much stuff as I can online.
"Yeah, just don't want to put too much pressure on myself. There are 60 women and we are all trying to get a podium finish I would say, not only just a gold medal. A top three would be amazing for ourselves and countries."
It's been a minute but Lydia Ko is in the hunt on the LPGA again. She opened the season with a win and a second but hasn't posted a top-10 finish since early March. Her last five outings: T-39, T-27, T-46, MC, MC.
Needing just one more point to achieve entry in the LPGA Hall of Fame, maybe this is the week Ko punches through.
"Some people have reached out and are like, 'Oh, it's going to happen. You're so close.' I was like 'Oh, I'm not as stressed as I think people are thinking,'" she said after he round.
"Being one point away is so much easier than being two. I know when you're two points away, oh, I still have to have two wins.
"I feel like if it's honestly meant to be for me to be in the Hall of Fame and be a Hall of Famer, it's probably going to happen so I'm just trying to play the best golf I can. In the past couple months I haven't played the best golf, so it's not like I'm playing with a lot of expectation trying to win I guess because I haven't been in contention as much."
And no time like the present to see things turn around a bit.
"Obviously it's a really good time for it to happen, at a tournament that means a lot to me with the Olympics and British Open and all that coming up."
Ko shot a 1-under 71 and is at 3 under overall, three back of the lead and tied with Jennifer Kupcho and Lilia Vu.
The American Olympic contingent consists of Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Rose Zhang. Vu and Zhang are competing in Calgary this week and they're both contending.
Zhang shot a second straight 71 and is 2 under overall, tied for seventh, four shots back.
Vu, meanwhile, was in the afternoon wave and shot a 2-under 70 to get into a tie for fourth.
Zhang and Vu each have an LPGA win this season and they would no doubt like to add a second before heading to Le Golf National in Paris with a shot a winning a medal.
Korda, taking this week off, is the defending gold medalist.
A week after tying for seventh, Stacy Lewis missed the cut by a shot, which came in at 4 over. She's among a rather short list of notable names who didn't make the weekend. That list includes Gabi Ruffels (5 over) and Danielle Kang (6 over).
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: CPKC Women's Open: Olympic golf is right around the corner but first things first in Canada, where there's been a Lydia Ko sighting
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