ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rookie of the year Jonathan Byrd hit the first drive of the PGA season from the first tee of the Plantation Course yesterday. In the background is Molokai.
KAPALUA, Maui >> Nick Price has been a stranger to the island chain, but it wasn't because he didn't find the 50th state to his liking. Price makes
Els and Furyk take early lead
rare stop in HawaiiBy Paul Arnett
parnett@starbulletin.comQualifying for the Mercedes Championships for the first time since the winners-only tournament moved here in 1999, Price said yesterday commitments in his native South Africa kept him from making the PGA Tour's West Coast swing.
"I felt obliged and also my duty to play in South Africa during that period because the sponsors there wanted all the top players at the time," Price said. "I think this is a great place to have it this time of year."
Fellow South Africans Retief Goosen and Ernie Els will play here in Hawaii for two weeks, then return to South Africa to compete in their homeland's events. As for Price?
"They don't want me anymore because I'm not a top player," Price said, then smiled. "No, I've got to go back in two weeks and play. It's a contractual thing for me. I'd probably go anyway.
"I took my wife and our kids down to New Zealand for the last three weeks. We were down there on holiday. It was perfect coming straight up here from there. Even if I hadn't gone to New Zealand, I would have come here for sure."
Unfortunately for Honolulu fans, Price is one of only six golfers here who will skip next week's Sony Open. He will play in Los Angeles before returning to South Africa. Els and Goosen have decided to stay on for next week's first full-field event on the PGA Tour.
"I'm in this to win, as early as I can, as early in the year," said Price, who qualified for this cozy event by winning the MasterCard Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas. It was his 18th win on tour and his first victory since 1998 at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. Price shot a 4-under 69 yesterday and trails leaders Els and Jim Furyk by five strokes.
"I think my chances of winning here are pretty good," Price said. He has never won this tournament since it began in Carlsbad, Calif., in 1979. "Even though the top two players in the world aren't here (Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson), it just shows you the depth of our tour right now. You have to shoot 20-under this week to win."
Byrd man: Jonathan Byrd learned over the weekend he was the 2002 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. He followed that up with a 5-under 68 yesterday to put him near the top of one of the more elite leaderboards on tour.
"It's been a pretty cool three months," Byrd said, who is tied for ninth, four shots off the lead. "I win (the Buick Challenge), finish off the year by getting into the Masters. Then I get married, have a great holiday season, then I got rookie of the year, which is a pretty big honor.
"Now I'm in Maui, just keep getting blessed every week. And I had a good day on the course. It's the first round of the year. Everybody is probably a little rusty. I hit 17 greens, but I didn't strike it real good. If it gets windy, I need to strike it a little better to keep close."
Not so tough: Yesterday's 69.361 scoring average was the lowest for any round in the five years that that tournament has been held at the Plantation Course. It is only the third time the 18-hole scoring average finished below 70 since the tournament was held on Maui.
Gene Sauers posted the most birdies with nine. Els and Sauers needed only 27 putts to post their low scores. Charles Howell III saw his streak of rounds in the 60s come to an end at 16. He shot a woeful 73.
The most difficult hole was the par-3 eighth. There were only two birdies -- by Price and Ian Leggatt -- with five bogeys and two double bogeys, including one by Els. The scoring average was 3.250.
The easiest hole was the par-5 ninth. There were two eagles -- co-leader Furyk and Luke Donald -- with 21 birdies and only two bogeys -- Bob Burns and K.J. Choi. The scoring average was 4.361.
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Tonight's basketball game between Brigham Young-Hawaii and Hawaii Pacific just got a little more meaningful. Seasiders, Sea Warriors
Short can be sweet
put rankings on the lineBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comClashes between the two schools always meant something, but the Sea Warriors were No. 2 in the latest regional rankings, putting them in position to defend their 12-1 start to the season. The Seasiders, who are the defending champions in the conference, are ranked sixth.
The Pacific West Conference champion gets an automatic berth to the tournament, along with the champions of the Great Northwest Conference and the California Collegiate Athletic Association. The final five invitations are determined by the regional rankings. Hawaii-Hilo is ranked eighth.
But neither coach is concerned with regional rankings at this time of year because the tournament is still two months away. They just know that winning tonight would help them get there.
"I don't think it adds anything to it," HPU coach Russell Dung said. "Every time we play BYU it is just a great collegiate basketball game. Every second counts."
Dung will be taking his team on the road for the first time, but will have his team's great start and the fact that BYUH has played only once in the past month to lean on for confidence. He doesn't have to tell his guys what their first trip of the year to the Cannon Center means.
"The road to the conference title goes through BYU," Dung said. "We have to beat them to get to the next level."
The Sea Warriors ran up their preseason record by playing good basketball, but will see Scott Salisbury and Alexus Foyle for the first time this season. Dung admits that although his team competed against players with athleticism similar to Foyle's when the Sea Warriors lost to Kennesaw State in December, they have not run up against a center with Salisbury's pedigree.
"I don't think we can really stop Alexus and Scott," Dung said. "It will be a matter of keeping all of the other guys around them from hurting us. We don't want Shawn Opunui to hit 10 3-pointers."
Because it is the first meeting, the game will be one of adjustments on the fly. The Seasiders are able to see the Sea Warriors on television every time they play, but Dung has not had a chance to see this edition of the Seasiders yet. He is relying on statistics, word of mouth and tapes of last year's games.
"We don't want to change anything that has been working," Dung said. "We have accomplished as much as we can in the preseason. We just have to forget about it and turn our attention to the two days of prep we will get for BYUH."
With Hawaii-Hilo and Chaminade running out to 2-0 starts in the conference before the Sea Warriors and Seasiders play their first conference game, the job of keeping up has already started. Tonight's loser will be the first to be collared with a conference loss.
"I knew they (HPU) would be somewhere around 12-1," BYUH coach Ken Wagner said. "They will provide a good test for us."
A face in the crowd: BYUH volleyball player Chun Yi Lin appears in this week's edition of Sports Illustrated in the "Faces in the Crowd" section.
Lin is honored by the magazine for helping the Seasiders to their 10th national title last month and joining teammate Yu Chuan Weng on the NCAA Division II All-America team. Lin nailed 23 kills while hitting .611 for the Seasiders in the championship game and was named to the all-tournament team.
System test: Montana State-Billings lost its three games in the islands, but coach Craig Carse has bigger thing to worry about than his record.
His system will have to complete the season without its two top scorers. David Carse had surgery on his shoulder and Jerrett Skrifvers had surgery to repair ligaments in his right hand. Both are out for the season, but it doesn't mean the Yellowjackets are out of the conference race by any stretch.
"They'll come around," Dung said. "When you lose two starters there is always a period of adjustment, but they will come up with someone else. That freshman kid (Cameron Munoz) went off for 39 points, that is just remarkable."
Silverswords hurting: Chaminade will only have seven players in uniform tomorrow against Western New Mexico, and it isn't just the small nagging injuries, either.
Jerry Wells, Ryan Bishop and Kashif Reyes are all probably out for the year, while Rahshaw McAfee and John Kirk have ligament damage that is being evaluated. Mike Donegan was held out of last night's game due to a concussion suffered in the Silverswords' win over Montana State-Billings.
"That's athletics," Chaminade coach Aaron Griess said. "It's what happens. We just have to work through it."
Author, author: Former BYUH point guard Yuta Tabuse has published a book of columns he wrote for the Basketball Monthly in his native Japan. Tabuse kept a journal of his three years at the school, titled "Never Too Late" and it has sold out of its first run on Amazon.com's branch in Japan.
Tabuse, currently the backup point guard for Toyota in Japan's professional league, was started for last year's PacWest champions.
