Women's British Open: Stupples Thrives on Home Comfort

Nothing mends the exiled golfer's soul like coming home, although the smile on the face of Karen Stupples as she stepped off the links at Lytham yesterday suggested that holing second shots in the women's British Open probably helps too.

The 33-year-old from Kent, who plies her trade on the LPGA tour in the United States, is back in Britain this week for the first time in a year. Off the course, she has celebrated her return in the company of her sister Susan, a deputy head teacher at a primary school who persuaded her to give some golf tips to her pupils.

On the course, she has marked it by playing her way into contention for one of the biggest titles in women's golf, thanks in no small part to the 113-yard wedge shot she holed from Royal Lytham's 16th fairway for eagle. "My caddy was telling the ball to stay in the air because he was worried about the bunkers at the front of the green but I knew it was pretty good as soon as I hit it. I'd hit it well enough to carry everything. I just didn't think I'd hit it well enough to hole it," she said.

It wasn't the first time Stupples has holed an iron shot in this tournament. At Sunningdale two years ago, her 220-year five-iron at the par-five second hole rolled straight into the cup, giving her an albatross two. That, and an eagle at the first, set her on course for a final round of 64 which was good enough to win the tournament.

Yesterday's shot at Lytham wasn't quite so pivotal, although it might prove to be come Sunday afternoon. The eagle helped lift Stupples to three-under par, and two-under for the tournament - four shots behind the tournament leader Julie Inkster, who added a level par-72 to her first round 66 for a 36-hole total of 136.

As her score suggested, the American found yesterday's conditions less to her liking than Thursday's. She didn't much like her own golf swing either, complaining that she couldn't hit her driver, although she is a seasoned enough competitor to grind out a decent score while playing less than decently. Her par four down the last hole was a perfect summation of her scrambling abilities: a duck hook off the tee, followed by a low iron shot from the rough, followed by a beautiful pitch from 80 yards, followed by a 10-footer into the centre of the cup. "I was pretty pleased with that," she said.

She is far too polite to say such a thing, but she must also have been pretty pleased with the efforts of those who were expected to offer her the stiffest challenge, most of whom played in a manner that was as grey and uninspiring as the weather. Some of them didn't even reach the level of mediocrity, not least Karrie Webb, who arrived in Lytham full of confidence after winning in France last week and left having missed the cut, as well as running up the worst single hole score of the week - a five-over-par eight on the par-three ninth hole.

As for the one player above the Australian in the world rankings, Annika Sorenstam, the best that can be said is she didn't play herself out of the tournament. She briefly threatened to make a significant move up the leaderboard, birdieing the sixth and seventh holes, but then double-bogied the eighth to fall back. She finished the day on one-under for the tournament - five behind Inkster.

The only thing that can be said about the other, the world No2 Michelle Wie, is that she once again played herself into the limelight, albeit as a result of just one shot during her second round. When the teenager walked off the final green she was immediately escorted to a television monitor to take a look at her bunker shot on the 14th hole, where she appeared to move sand behind the ball before striking it - an inadvertent error but one that landed her with a two-shot penalty.