Park In-bi tied for 5th and Ko Jin-young tied for 7th to enter the final round.
‘Defending Champion’ Lee Mi-rim, 31, tied for second place in the third round of ANA Inspiration (total prize money of $3.1 million), the first major tournament of the LPGA Tour season.
Lee Mi-rim hit 4 under par 68 with 6 birdies and 2 bogies in the 3rd round of the 3rd round of the tournament held at Mission Hills Country Club (par 72, 6,763 yards) in Rancho Mirage, California, USA on the 4th (Korean time).
Lee Mi-rim, who recorded 207 strokes at a 9-under par on three days, finished the third round with a tie for second place, five strokes behind Patty Tawatanap (Thailand), the sole 1st place with 202 strokes at 14 under par.
Ally Ewing (USA) enters the final round with Lee Mi-rim tied for second place.
The Champions Group is Tawatananip and Ewing, and the final round begins at 5:45am on the 5th of Korea time.
Lee Mi-rim will play in the fourth round 10 minutes ahead of the champion group with Fengshan Mountain (China), who is the only fourth place with an 8-under par.
Lee Mi-rim, who won this tournament last year and became the first major throne in his life, reduced the number of strokes by catching a birdie twice in a row in holes 2-4 and 14-16.
In this tournament last year, Lee Mi-rim also won the final round at the tie for third place, two strokes behind the tie for the third round, after an extended match.
Park In-bi (33) reduced 2 strokes to 4 birdies and 2 bogies on this day and climbed to 5th place with 7-under par 209.
It is a slightly difficult gap to reverse with a 7-stroke gap from the lead.
Park In-bi, who hit only 55.6% (10/18) in both rounds of the first and second rounds, improved slightly to 61.1% (11/18) on this day, but was still uneasy.
The number of putts was 28, a slight increase from 26 and 25 in the first and second rounds.
Ko Jin-young (26), ranked first in the world rankings, is tied for 7th with a 6-under-par of 210 strokes.
The rookie Tawatananap hit a 5-under-par 67 with 7 birdies and 2 bogies on the same day, and sprinted in the lead by 5 strokes alone.
Tawatanain, who has not missed the first place in three days, will challenge the wire-to-wire championship, finishing first place in every round 21 years after Kari Webb (Australia) in 2000.
He was in the lead by six strokes, but the 17th hole (par 3) tee shot entered the left bunker on the green, narrowing the gap from second place by five strokes.
This year, 22-year-old Rookie Tawatanain debuted on the LPGA regular tour last year, and in the 2020 season suffered claudication due to the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), he is still maintaining his rookie status this season.
He participated in the 2018 US Women’s Open as an amateur and tied for fifth place and is a player sponsored by Hana Financial Group.
This season, he is leading the rookie award category, and the average distance is 268.1 yards, which is the 9th place in the tour.
/yunhap news