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WAIKOLOA, Hawaii >> If this were a horse race, Lorie Kane would have surged ahead at the end by mere inches, earning her lead in a photo finish. Kane picks up
where she left offThe defending Takefuji Classic
Not a Wie bit of pressure
champion birdies the 18th to take
the first-round leadBy Kalani Simpson
ksimpson@starbulletin.comThe defending champion was out of the pack by a mere nose after day one of the LPGA Takefuji Classic yesterday after birdieing her final hole of the day, leaving four others -- headlined by playing partner Annika Sorenstam -- hounding her at a stroke back.
Kane hit a beautiful 7-iron from 140 yards out to set up a 1-foot putt for birdie that gave her a 7-under 63 for the day. She was, finally, the lowest of the low.
It looked shocking. The leader board was drenched in red, like an old grade-school test with almost every single answer horribly, inexplicably, unbelievably wrong. It was a bloodletting. But this time, it was a good thing. In golf, it is a very good thing.
Scores were low and low scores were plentiful, thanks in part to peaceful conditions that played as good as they looked. Draped by a postcard-perfect backdrop that included coconut trees in the foreground and snow-capped Mauna Kea and snow-dusted Mauna Loa in the distance, the Waikoloa Beach Course was caressed by genial breezes that whispered only sweet nothings.
"It was just one of those days," said Liselotte Neumann of Sweden, who finished her round at 6-under, and was clubhouse co-leader for most of the afternoon, "where you could go in and sort of picture the shots."
It was, because the wind -- which tore through the course earlier this week -- decided to bless yesterday's competitors with a much more appeasing disposition.
"The first couple days, I had to look at this golf course with the wind blowing and I thought, 'Holy smokes,' " Kane said.
"The last two or three days have just been unbelievable," said Catriona Matthew, another of the four golfers who sits one stroke behind Kane. "It was nearly unplayable the last couple of days."
But yesterday Matthew, a Scotswoman, took the early clubhouse lead at 6-under after sinking a 1-foot birdie putt on 18. And afterward, she said players were lucky to be rid of the wind.
"The conditions today," Neumann would later agree, "were pretty much perfect."
Sorenstam played strong on the back nine to keep herself in contention, and she liked her performance, considering her lack of practice time. Korean Mi Hyun Kim was yet another who birdied her final hole of the day -- her third over the last nine holes -- to put herself in the crowded tie for second place.
Matthew birdied her first hole, made the turn at 5-under and remained one of a handful -- including Kane, Sorenstam and Michele Redman -- under par for all 18 holes.
Neumann's surge came on the back nine. She birdied Nos. 13, 15, 16 and 17 to charge into a tie for first place that would stand until Kane broke it with a birdie on her final hole of the day.
Kane considered herself lucky, one of the few golfers to get in a decent practice on the course when the wind finally died down early in her pro-am appearance. The good look at the Beach Course paid off, with Kane birdieing her first four holes.
"I started off like a house on fire," she said.
And ended like one, birdieing 3, 6, 8 and 9, finishing her day on the front nine and seizing the lead.
"When you chip in on the third hole," the defending champ pointed out, "you know the karma's good."
Redman played solid golf, hitting 15 greens ("they were perfect," she said) to finish at 5-under.
Betsy King, Janice Moodie, Gloria Park, Kasumi Fujii, Suzanne Strudwick, Tina Fischer and Jill McGill all lurked three back at 4-under
It looks like very little has been narrowed down, and the leaders hit today's first tee box knowing no matter how well they had shot the day before, it was still anyone's tournament.
Neumann noted that weather conditions were so poor on the course in the days leading up to the tournament that practice rounds did little good.
"You just try to sort of not think about it and think of survival, really," Neumann said.
But forgive defending champ Kane if she's in a different mood: "When you have success somewhere, you come back with that feeling of wanting to continue where you left off."
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The pressure is on everyone else, all these women playing for paychecks, the ones standing over putts to pay the rent. Those are the people with tension and sweat. They are the ones with nerves. This is their job, their living, their life. Not a Wie bit of pressure
By Kalani Simpson
ksimpson@starbulletin.comMichelle Wie is only playing hooky from Punahou.
Wie was clearly enjoying the moment after shooting a 2-over 72 on her first day at the Takefuji Classic yesterday, postponing interviews for a few minutes as the Wie family took an impromptu picture as a souvenir. They grinned madly in the dying twilight. There were big smiles all around.
"I can't see," she said afterward, blinking from the flash.
Good fun? "Yeah," the 12-year-old said.
The baby-faced bomber said she was nervous for her first shot, but after that, she told herself she was playing on her home course.
But she believes she could have played even better. Her first mistakes, as can happen, led to others.
Wie relished the chance to play against pros. "They have more experience than me," she said. "I think I'm better at ball striking and all that. But I'm not really good at reading the greens, I'm not really used to the fast greens like these. So it's like (the difference is) playing more tournaments like that."
She'll get her chance.
Little sister: Charlotta Sorenstam, long in the shadow of LPGA superstar and big sister Annika, created the first fireworks of the tournament yesterday. The younger Sorenstam, wielding a 7-iron, scored a hole-in-one -- the fourth of her LPGA career -- on the par-3, 156-yard No. 4. The early ace dropped her from even to 2-under, and she stayed in the red numbers the rest of the way, finishing at 3-under.
One mistake: Tied for second, Catriona Matthew was so hot the only time she wasn't under par was when she teed off at even to start the tournament. But Matthew did make one big mistake, sending her tee shot off No. 12 into a sun-baked lava hazard.
"Never to be seen again," she joked.
Matthew double-bogeyed to rise to 3-under, but rebounded with birdies at 13, 16 and 18 to finish strong.
Hair today: This, verbatim, from an LPGA release: "LPGA Tour players compete in an average of 25 tournaments per year. The constant travel makes many of life's routine activities difficult. One such instance is hair care. Jan Butterfield, the LPGA Tour's 'official skin care, hair and fashion consultant,' travels to 19 tournaments throughout the year. She provides a variety of hair care services, as well as advice on skin care and fashion. ... Butterfield is a traveling road show. She typically works in the players' locker room for easy access and ... brings supplies and accessories with her to each tournament stop."
Unfortunately, the Takefuji Classic was not on Butterfield's list of destinations.