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Friday, February 16, 2001
Matthew warms With 20-25 mph winds blowing all day and a score of even-par 72 good enough to make the leaderboard, every one of her LPGA peers must have been wondering what course Catriona Matthew was playing yesterday.
up with a 67
She takes a two-stroke lead
into second round of the
Hawaiian Ladies OpenBy Bill Kwon
Star-BulletinThe 31-year-old Scot must have felt right at home at the wind-swept Kapolei Golf Course, shooting a 5-under-par 67 for a two-stroke lead over surprising challenger Hee-Won Han, a Monday qualifier, going into today's second round of the Cup Noodles Hawaiian Ladies Open.
Well, almost at home.
"I'm used to it. This is the kind of wind I grew up with," Matthew said. "It was windy enough (but) it was too warm. I don't play in weather like this when I'm home. I'm too spoiled."
If she didn't enjoy it, imagine how the others who couldn't come close to shooting par -- let alone a 67 -- must have felt.
With only five other golfers breaking par, the 36-hole cut after today could match the high of 153 set in 1996 when it was as windy.
Playing a lot of punched-iron shots was the key, according to Matthew, who's still looking for her first LPGA victory since joining the tour in 1995. Three of them led to birdies at four, five and six.
"If you try any kind of normal shot, the wind just takes it," Matthew said. "About every iron shot I hit was a punch shot. You just have to try to keep (the ball) a bit lower in the wind -- in the gale."
After taking her second bogey of the day at 11, Matthew birdied 14 and eagled the par-5 17th to widen her lead. She hit a 3-wood from 217 yards to five feet of the wind-bent flagstick. A sand save for par at the 18th proved a satisfying end to her well-played round.
"Really, I was looking at level par on a day like that. I guess I got lucky," Matthew said.Leslie Spalding, another nonwinner on the LPGA Tour, who didn't get lucky at 18, double-bogeying it after being the only other player to get to 3-under during the difficult day.
She was in a three-way tie for third at 71 with Vicki Goetze-Ackerman and Mhairi McKay.
But Han, a 22-year-old native of Seoul, provided the biggest surprise.
On a day when Annika Sorenstam shot a 74, and Karrie Webb and Lorie Kane, last week's LPGA Takefuji Classic winner, carded 77s and half the field shot 78 or higher, Han turned in a remarkably steady round for someone playing in only her fifth LPGA event.
It helps, though, that three of them have been at Kapolei, two on sponsor's exemptions.
"Playing twice before here helped me on how to adjust to the wind and how to avoid trouble on the course," she said through an interpreter.
But Han had no trouble reading the greens, as three of her birdie putts of 25, 10 and 13 feet were all slippery downhillers.
NOTES:
A sore back forced Kris Tschetter to withdraw, ending a streak of 13 straight Hawaiian Ladies Open tournaments. Tschetter, who represented Ko Olina from 1990 to 1994, tied for 44th in the LPGA Takefuji Classic last week at the Kona Country Club, in her first competitive round after undergoing hip surgery last June.