<p>INDIANAPOLIS</p>
<p>The winds started gusting during the second half of Erica Shepherd’s round at Brickyard Crossing and nearly blew her weekend plans away.</p>
<p>Fortunately for the local golf phenom, the rest of the field at the LPGA Indy Women in Tech Championship had to fight the same battle for much of Friday afternoon, and Shepherd will live to see another day. Actually, two.</p>
<p>Perched in the top 20 for much of her round, Shepherd bogeyed four of her last six holes to finish the second round with a 2-over-par 74, dropping her down to even par for the tournament (144). But that kept her just on the safe side of the cut line through the afternoon, as many of the players going off late also struggled to handle the breezy conditions.</p>
<p>She is tied for 57th place entering today’s third round.</p>
<p>"I feel like I committed to a lot of shots," Shepherd said of her late struggles, "but the thing that I’m working on with my swing right now doesn’t really go well with trying to hit low shots in the wind."</p>
<p>As she had during Thursday’s first round, Shepherd jumped out to a quick start, converting birdie opportunities on the second and fourth holes to move to 4 under overall. She bogeyed the par-5 fifth for the second straight time — but just as she did a day earlier, she got that stroke right back with a birdie on the sixth.</p>
<p>Shepherd was tied for 16th when she made the turn at -4, but the wind began blowing a little harder, making it a bit tougher to navigate the course on the way back in.</p>
<p>On the 13th hole, Shepherd’s approach shot found a greenside bunker, leading to a bogey. She dropped another shot on the par-3 15th when she three-putted from about 30 feet out.</p>
<p>The final two holes both yielded bogeys as well. Shepherd shorted both her approach shot and chip on 17, and a wayward drive and another second shot into a bunker left her with a difficult par putt on the 18th.</p>
<p>"I had my shot started right where I wanted to," she said of her approach on 18, "and then the wind just completely took it off the green. But that’s golf."</p>
<p>When she finished, the Center Grove grad was tied for 68th and right on the cut line but not particularly optimistic about her chances of extending her trip home through the weekend, believing that even par probably wasn’t going to hold up with half the field still left to go out and chase birdies.</p>
<p>Even before the stressful wait, Shepherd seemed to consider it a case of playing with house money no matter how it turned out.</p>
<p>"It’d be worse if it was a junior golf event," she said, "but it’s a pro event, so even to be in this position and be here on a sponsor’s invite, I’m just grateful for that."</p>
<p>Now, she has two more rounds to be grateful for — and she’ll likely have one of the larger crowd followings of any player in the field, something she never takes for granted when she gets to play in this tournament.</p>
<p>"Everyone in Indiana, people are so good here," Shepherd said. "Especially when you travel to other places, you really learn to appreciate how amazing Hoosiers are."</p>
