No day at the beach: Wind, cold wreck scores at Gainbridge LPGA

BOCA RATON, Fla.— How cold was it? Brooke Henderson, who was born and raised in Ontario, Canada, and was a hockey goalie until the age of 14, had hand warmers in her pocket for Saturday’s third round of the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio.

And Lexi Thompson, who was born in Coral Springs and now lives in Delray Beach, was asked if as a native South Floridian would she have played a casual round of golf Saturday?

“I would’ve attempted, but probably wouldn’t have made it long,” she said.

But it wasn’t so much the temperatures in the high 40s that topped out in the mid 50s that wrecked havoc on the scores at Boca Rio. It was the sustained winds of 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 33 mph that made club selection and ball striking tricky. Even on the greens.

“Yeah, definitely felt like we were back home today,” said Henderson, who shot a 2-over 74 and is 3 under for the tournament, eight shots behind leader Lydia Ko.

It was so cold Saturday that …

So how cold was it? Even the staunchest supporters of Ron DeSantis would have worn a face mask. Fighting for your constitutional rights has its limits.

When someone yelled “fore,” it could have been warning for falling Iguanas.

Saturday’s average score of 75.1 was 4.6 strokes more than Thursday and three shots worse than Friday. Just five golfers were in the red, including Celine Boutier, who had a remarkable bogey-free round of 3-under putting her within three shots of the lead. Boutier was raised in France. She now lives in Dallas.

“Growing up in Europe obviously we played a lot of golf in the U.K. so you’re just kind of used to it,” said Boutier.

Stacy Lewis, chipping onto the 10th green during Saturday’s third round of the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio, said weather is the great equalizer in golf. (Photo: Andres Leiva/Palm Beach Post)

Lewis, who turned professional in 2008, believes the weather is a great equalizer. And the scores back her up. The same two golfers atop the leaderboard for the first two rounds are Nos. 1 and 2 entering Sunday’s final round. The difference is Ko’s even-par 72 Saturday gives her a two shot lead over Danielle Kang, who was 2 over. Ko is 11 under for the tournament.

“As I get older, I need more days like this,” said the 36-year-old Lewis, who carded a 72 and sits seven shots behind Ko. “If it’s hot and nice and sunny, Nelly is hitting it 50 (yards) by me and it’s a different day completely.”

Nelly is Nelly Korda, the top-ranked women’s golfer in the world from Bradenton. Korda didn’t handle the conditions very well Saturday with a 76, including four bogeys on the front nine. She is 11 shots behind Ko.

Korda started her round sporting an oversized pair of mittens, perfect for the slopes outside of Beijing next week but typically about as useful as a snowblower in South Florida. She’d flap her hands to keep the blood circulating early in her round before exchanging out the mittens for a club before each shot.

The combination of wind and cold added two to three club lengths to many shots. Lewis pulled out a 4-iron for her 163-yard approach shot on the fifth hole, a club she typically hits 185 yards.

The ball landed three feet from the pin.

“You have to play in this stuff a few times to really learn how to do it and how to hit the shots,” Lewis said. “You can see it a little bit with Nelly today, just trying it hit full shots where maybe needed kind of little ones.”

Kang prepared for cold conditions

Which is why Kang, who lives in Las Vegas, layered up and hit the links on the most miserable days this winter. Kang was not happy the way she has handled cold, windy conditions and made it a point to play as much as she could in less than ideal conditions, even adding and subtracting layers to find a comfort zone.

“It was really tough out there,” she said. “I missed a lot of putts. There was a lot of gusting shots and I never missed so many putts by so far in a while.”

The news for Sunday’s final round was good and bad. While the winds are expected to subside, temperatures are expected to drop in the low 30s overnight with a wind chill in the 20s. Tournament officials have moved up tee times in anticipation of frost on the course.

“Dress warm,” Thompson, the South Floridian, warned.