Morgane Metraux got a glimpse of what title contention could be like at the Olympics.

She’s hoping to handle it better the next two days.

Metraux set Le Golf National ablaze with an Olympic-record 28 on the front nine Thursday, but she came back to the field with a few sloppy mistakes late while on the clock to shoot 66 and take a one-shot lead over Ruoning Yin at the halfway point of the women’s competition.

“It’s always fun to see yourself on top of the leaderboard,” Metraux said.

Ranked 137th in the world and in danger of losing her LPGA card this season, Metraux put together the best nine-hole stretch of her career, making eagle on both front-nine par 5s and adding four more birdies.

It didn’t come quite as easily on the back nine, as she was hampered, perhaps, by her group being put on the clock. NBC Sports on-course reporter John Wood said the entire group made little effort to speed up their pace, and Metraux said she was aware she was being timed on her shots but tried to block out the distraction. 

“I don’t think it impacted my game,” said Metraux, even if the results suggested otherwise. She made three bogeys coming home, including on the par-5 finishing hole, when she didn’t properly strike her mid-iron approach and found the water short of the green.

“It’s fine. Only got a bogey out of it,” she said. “I wish I didn’t, but it’s fine. I’m still in a great position for the last two days.”

And it’s an unfamiliar position at that. 

Metraux is a two-time winner on the Ladies European Tour (including a title this past May) but it’s been a slow season on the LPGA. In 14 starts, she has nine missed cuts and just a single finish inside the top 40. That has left her 96th in the season-long points standings.

“Last week I did a lot of good work, and I was feeling good about what I was doing,” she said. “I just didn’t realize it was going to be good. There’s a few good events coming up after this too, so it’s very promising.” 

FULL LEADERBOARD

1. Morgane Metraux (SUI): -8 (66) 
2. Ruoning Yin (CHN): -7 (65) 
3. Lydia Ko (NZL): -5 (67) 
T4. Mariajo Uribe (COL): -4 (70) 
T-4. Pia Babnik (SLO): -4 (66) 
T-6. Bianca Pagdanganan (PHI): -3 (69) 
T-6. Atthaya Thitikul (THA): -3 (69) 
T-6. Celine Boutier (FRA): -3 (76) 
T-6. Miyu Yamashita (JPN): -3 (70) 
T-6. Ashleigh Buhai (RSA): -3 (73) 
T-6. Xiyu Lin (CHN): -3 (70)

Korda was surging into position to defend her gold medal when she came unraveled on the 150-yard 16th hole.

Indecisive with her club selection, Korda heeled her tee shot into the water and then compounded the error by plugging her third shot into the greenside bunker. She blasted out to the back of the green and needed three more shots from there — including a 7-foot miss — to walk off with a quadruple-bogey 7.

It was a stunning series of miscues considering how in control the world No. 1 had looked for the previous three hours — she had missed just one green in regulation and was 6 under for the day, just two shots off the lead.

“A little bit of a disastrous hole,” she said. 

Korda three-putted the next green for another bogey but birdied the last to shoot 70. 

It was yet another big-time, big-stage blowup for Korda, who made a 10 to spoil her bid at the U.S. Women’s Open, carded a second-round 81 at the Women’s PGA to miss the cut, and now authored this disaster in the Olympic Games to put her six shots off the halfway lead (but just three back of the podium).

“If this had happened on the fourth day I’d be really, really heartbroken,” she said, “but I know I have 36 more holes to make something happen.” 

There’d be plenty to look forward to Saturday in Paris.

Fortunately for Ko, the difficulty of Le Golf National is occupying all of her head space at the moment.

Ko is looking to complete the medal slam with a gold this week, a feat that would also grant her entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame. Her focus right now is seeing how she can build on her 72-67 start.

“Honestly, this golf course is so hard, it’s hard to think about the other things because I’m just trying to shoot the best score I can around here,” Ko said.

The questions will only increase over the next two days as she looks to put an exclamation point on what has already been a remarkable career. She is the only player, male or female, to win a medal in each of the previous two Olympic competitions, and she has earned 26 of the 27 points needed to become the 35th member of the LPGA’s Hall.

“I feel like if it’s going to happen — whether it’s in Paris or in Florida or in Scotland — it’s going to happen,” she said. “And I’m just excited that I have this opportunity. If I get to do it here, it would be a pretty cool way to get it done. But I’m playing alongside 59 of the other top qualified players here, and there’s 36 holes for me to go. It’s just a lot of golf to be played, so I’m focusing on me right now and hopefully I do have this opportunity by the end of Saturday.” 

Boutier couldn’t maintain the momentum of her sizzling first round at Le Golf National.

The 30-year-old Frenchwoman, trying to win a gold medal at home a year after capturing her first major championship in her native country, moved all the way to 8 under before coming undone on the closing stretch.

She went 6-6-6 on Nos. 13-15, a 5-over stretch that sank her to a 76 and a tie for sixth. She’s now five back.

“If you don’t have a good tee shot in play, it can be really tricky out there,” she said. “This course from No. 1 to No. 18, you just have to be so conscious, so focused.” 

That’s made even more challenging this week as Boutier is the clear, sentimental favorite on the grounds, with fans serenading her as she walks up to the tee boxes and greens. A hot putter led her to an opening 65 and a three-shot lead, which only enlivened the spectators.

“I’ve done this too many times to know that a solid, good round on the first day doesn’t really mean much,” she said. 

Ruoning Yin got up-and-down from the bunker on 18 to card the only bogey-free round of the week so far, a 7-under 65 that put her within a shot of the 36-hole lead. Despite hitting just half of the fairways, Yin missed only three greens and gained nearly five shots on the field on the greens Thursday. For the week, she leads in putting. She’s also coming off a team victory (with Atthaya Thitikul) in her most recent start. ... Pia Babnik, a 20-year-old from Slovenia, enjoyed an eight-shot improvement in the second round, going from 74-66 to vault into medal contention in her second Olympic start. Babnik has showed promising form of late, entering the Paris Games with three top-10s in her last four events on the Ladies European Tour. ... Mariajo Uribe is trying to go out on top. The 34-year-old has said that she will retire from professional golf after this week, and she’s currently in a tie for fourth — just four shots off the lead — heading into the final two rounds. ... The three Americans are bunched on the leaderboard, all T-14 or better: Korda and Rose Zhang are six shots back, while Lilia Vu is another shot behind after a second-round 73. ... Scoring was about a stroke-and-a-half easier in Round 2, with a field average of 72.6.

Check out the running recap by the NBC Olympic team from the second day at Le Golf National:

After her disastrous quadruple bogey at the par-3 16th, Korda bogeyed the 17th and birdied the 18th to shoot 2-under 70. She finished at 2 under par, six back of leader Morgane Metraux (SUI).

Korda birdied the 15th hole — her sixth of the day — to move into sole possession of second place, two shots off the lead. She then had her tee ball on the par-3 16th roll back into the water hazard. After her penalty stroke, she hit her third into a fried-egg lie in the bunker, blasted her next over the green and then left herself with 7 feet for a triple, which she missed to make a quadruple-bogey 7.

Korda dropped to 2 under par and into a tie for 12th.

We all know the story (and it will be told again and again over the next couple of days): A gold medal gives Ko a career collection of all three and gets her into the LPGA Hall of Fame. The New Zealander made six birdies and one bogey on Thursday, that lone dropped shot coming after a poor drive on the par-5 18th.

Ko, at 5 under par, sits three back of leader Morgane Metraux (SUI).

Boutier led by three shots after the first round in her home country, but Thursday's back nine sent her tumbling down the leaderboard. The Frenchwoman made double bogey at No. 13, bogey at No. 14 and double again at No. 15. She also missed a 6-foot birdie putt at the last for an inward 41. Boutier, at 3 under par, was five shots off the lead and tied for sixth when she signed for her 76.

The defending gold medalist made four birdies over her opening nine holes to reach 4 under par. She's currently tied for third place and four shots off the lead.

Metraux's dramatic round concluded with a water ball at the par-5 18th and a closing bogey. Still, the Swiss player held a two-stroke lead over New Zealand's Lydia Ko when she signed for a 66 to sit at 8 under par.

NBC Sports' on-course reporter John Wood reported that Metraux was issued a "bad time" on the 13th hole by Mark Litton, an official with her group. Wood reported that Metraux's group had been previously warned about slow play. A first bad time does not result in a penalty but a second one would cost Metraux a stroke.

She did, however, drop a shot on No. 13 as she made bogey, her first of the day, to cut her lead to one. Getty photographers captured officials talking to Metraux on the 10th hole (below). The 27-year-old Swiss golfer turned in 8-under 28 but has yet to record a birdie or better on the back nine (update: that changed with a bounce-back birdie at No. 14)

Morgane Metraux talking to an official regarding slow play in Round 2 of the Olympic women's golf event.

Getty Images

Metraux is a 27-year-old Swiss golfer who is in her third year on the LPGA Tour. Metraux qualified for the Tokyo Games, which were contested in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic, but she declined her spot in order to stay focused on her professional career. At the time, she was competing on the LPGA's developmental tour (currently known as the Epson Tour), which provided her pathway to the primary circuit.

The benefactor to Metraux's decision to skip the last Olympics was her older sister, Kim, who took Switzerland's second opening.

Morgane went to school at Florida State, where she was a two-time All-American. She turned professional in 2018 and competed on the Ladies European Tour before making her way back to the States. Kim Metraux, a 29-year-old lefty, also played collegiately at FSU and is currently competing on the LET.

Morgane Metraux has been able to keep her LPGA card by finishing 89th on the season-long points list each of the last two years (the top 100 retain/earn full membership). She's 96th in points this season after getting off to a horrible start in which she missed her first six cuts. Her fifth-place showing in June's ShopRite LPGA Classic was her fourth career top-10 on tour, but she entered the Olympics having missed three of her last four cuts.

Metraux is one of two Swiss golfers in the women's field, alongside Albane Valenzuela. She arrived in Paris, France, by taking the train from her home in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The 59 watch is seriously on. Metraux rolled in a 16-footer for eagle at the par-5 ninth to reach 10 under for the tournament and grab a two-shot lead over France's Celine Boutier. It was her second eagle on the front nine and her EIGHTH 3 on the card.

She had made only one eagle — one! — for the year on the LPGA.

Here's what she's done thus far on Thursday (and how she's climbed the leaderboard).

Par-4 first: Birdie (-3)
Par-3 second: Par (-3)
Par-5 third: Eagle (-5)
Par-4 fourth: Birdie (-6) 
Par-4 fifth: Biride (-7)
Par-4 sixth: Birdie (-8)
Par-4 seventh: Par (-8)
Par-3 eighth: Par (-8)
Par-5 ninth: Eagle (-10)