Jennifer Kupcho, Leona Maguire grab lead at Dow Championship

Jennifer Kupcho and Ireland’s Leona Maguire put together a 10-under-par 60 on Friday to vault into the Dow Championship lead at Midland (Mich.) Country Club.
Friday served as the second round of the LPGA Tour’s lone team event, but the first round using the four-ball (best ball) format. Thursday and Saturday are played in foursomes (alternate shot), and Sunday’s final round will return to best ball.
Kupcho and Maguire improved to 13-under 127 for the tournament, one ahead of first-round leaders Gemma Dryburgh of Scotland and Cassie Porter of Australia. Dryburgh and Porter posted a 62 to stay in contention.
Three teams are tied for third at 11 under: China’s Yan Liu and Yahui Zhang (62); Sarah Schmelzel and Switzerland’s Albane Valenzuela (61); and Belgium’s Manon De Roey and France’s Pauline Roussin-Bouchard (61).
Maguire had an early highlight when she holed an eagle at the par-4 12th, her team’s third hole of the day. She delivered the better ball much of the day and most of the team’s scores were thanks to Maguire, who birdied Nos. 2, 5, 7 and 9 coming in.
“The plan today was just to give ourselves as many chances as we could, try to get two chances on every hole,” Maguire said. “For the most part, we did that. It was nice to start off with a birdie and sort of an eagle very early on to get the ball rolling. Jen made a nice birdie on 18 to sort of keep the momentum going through the turn.”
Kupcho won the 2022 Dow Championship with Lizette Salas and she finished runner-up last year alongside Ally Ewing.
“I think the partners certainly help,” Kupcho said. “I think just in general I enjoy coming to Michigan, both Grand Rapids and here in Midland. … I just really enjoy coming out here, enjoy the community and just having all the fans. It’s always a great environment.”
Porter, a 22-year-old rookie, birdied five holes in a row starting at No. 3. Porter and Dryburgh put a bogey on the card at No. 8 before reeling off four more birdies and finishing with six straight pars.
“We both made plenty of putts, which obviously helps in this format,” Porter said. “You can go pretty low if you’ve both got the putter hot. I think we just made putts at the right time and helped each other out.
“There was a couple holes we both made birdie and we were like, ‘Shame we couldn’t have two.'”
Among the teams to miss the cut of 4 under par were Thai sisters Ariya and Moriya Jutanugarn (2 under), Lydia Ko of New Zealand and Danielle Kang (1 under) and Rose Zhang and South Korea’s Haeran Ryu (1 under).