Heavy rain showers failed to hold back England’s Mel Reid as she shot a three-under-par 69 in the third round of the RICOH Women’s British Open, putting her inside the top 10 with one round to go. Reid started solidly with four pars before a birdie at the fifth hole, a reachable par four with Saturday’s tees. The quick start was added to at the eighth with another birdie. Reid’s round showed much more promise than the day before as she made the turn at two under par, crediting good ball striking and better putting.
“I hit the ball nicely again, I’m hitting the ball really well,” she said. “I felt I hit a couple quite close in there and I was three under through nine or ten I think, and yeah, I mean I just played nicely. I felt like I kind of putted a lot better today, I felt that I hit a lot of good putts that didn’t go in. So all to play for tomorrow.”
Teeing off at 1:10 this afternoon, Reid unfortunately faced some of the more challenging weather, with heavy rain and slightly stronger winds than those that the morning competitors played in. It meant that the faster greens that the early clubhouse leader, Inbee Park, experienced, were nowhere to be found at Kingsbarns.
“I think for this morning’s groups they were probably a little bit faster and smoother whereas for us, I felt that little bit of rainfall, made them a little bit slower. My putt on 18 was slow, putt on 17 was slow,” said Reid. “So you’re kind of starting the round where the greens are a different speed to what you’re finishing them but, you know, you just need to adapt to that.”
Sitting third in the Ladies European Tour Solheim Cup Standings, Reid has an all-but-guaranteed spot in Team Europe for the biannual clash against the United States Team that will take place at Des Moines, Iowa, in a couple of weeks. This could lead fans to think that Reid has less on her mind this week, however, like most players, she is always striving to be better and has brought in some extra help in the shape of sports psychologist, Dr. Paul McCarthy.
“I just wanted to kind of start from scratch again. I felt that throughout my career I’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing people and I just feel that I’ve been taking a lot of information in and I just wanted to kind of start again and stick with one person,” explained Reid. “Kev, my coach, kind of mentioned Paul before and I just felt that that was the missing piece to the puzzle, so I brought him in last week and I kind of feel that he’s already made an impact.”
Despite three solid rounds putting her at an eight-under in total, it appears that Reid still has a long way to go if she wants to catch the on-form South Korean, In-Kyung Kim. However, she remains confident and believes in the magic that a Sunday at the RICOH Women’s British Open can produce.
“I think IK is playing extremely well, you know, she’s probably going to get to about 16-under which is for me, eight shots, it’s quite a lot,” said Reid. “But you know it’s Sunday of a major championship, anything can happen and I’ve just got to play as well as I can and try and post a number as early as I can.”
Reid’s third round 69 included four birdies and a bogey at the 388-yard 18th hole.
