Thursday's four-way tie for the lead was down to two on Friday with lone survivor Brittany Lang now sharing the lead at the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia with fellow American Stacy Lewis.
Brittany Lang in action on Friday
Thursday's four-way tie for the lead was down to two on Friday with lone survivor Brittany Lang now sharing the lead at the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia with fellow American Stacy Lewis.
Lang shot a sparkling second round 67 at the Kuala Lumpur Country Club to take her halfway total to a 9-under 133 total and Lewis a dazzling 6-under 65 in joining her.
Lewis covered the back nine in just 30 strokes en route to carding the best round of the day and delighted, said: "I struggled last week so it's nice to just get out there and shoot some good scores.
"And seeing putts going in is always a good thing. The golf course is a little easier this year so you have to make birdies and just keep it in the fairways."
Lang, in the meantime, had back-to-back birdies on the 12th and 13th holes to move into a tie for the lead before play was halted due to severe thunderstorms in the area.
Although the two delays halted Lang's momentum, she was able to par her final five holes and hold on to her share of the lead.
"You come out (after a delay) and you always feel different," Lang said afterwards "Like I was like a little bit shaky, because you sit for so long, you're in the air conditioning and you just feel different and then you have to get back to seeing your golf shot. I didn't do a great job of that, so something to learn."
Lewis and Lang are just one shot clear of the Netherlands new-comer Dewi Claire Schreefel and South Korean star Na Yeon Choi, two of the other overnight leaders who each added a 3-under 68 to their first round 66s.
They in turn are a shot clear of Spanish 2011 Solheim Cup star Azahara Munoz and two in front of Chines Taipei's World No 1 Yani Tseng whose 67 put her just three shots off the pace at 6-under as she bids to win her seventh LPGA Tour title and 9th World-wide tournament this year.
Tseng is tied with American Michelle Wie and Korean IK Kim.
Sweden's Marie Hjorth, the fourth member of the group that led the first round, wasn't anywhere near as fortunate as Lang, Schreefel and Choi, and tumbled down the leaderboard with a second round 5-over 76 that effectively ended her challenge.
It included three bogies and a quadruple bogey and left her in joint 27th place at level par and trailing the new leaders by all of nine shots.
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