Golf: Remarkable year continues for unfancied golfer

By BOB PEARCE

ROTORUA - Wanganui golfer Jenny Ritchie continues to have the sort of year that even the superstars might envy.

The 51-year-old made world headlines by holing in one either side of the new century on December 31 and January 1.

Yesterday she belied her three handicap with a par round of 71 at the Rotorua Golf Club to lead a field of top amateurs in the first round of the Honda national strokeplay championship.

On a day when the rock-hard Arikikapakapa course sent most scores soaring, Ritchie's closest challenge came from Malaysian champion Ai Lian Lim, on 72, with the next best 76s from Brenda Ormsby (Rotorua), Sharon Bierman (Kaikohe), Hee-Jeong Chun (Miramar) and Carlie Butler (New South Wales).

Ritchie, then Jenny Thompson, played in champion Bay of Plenty teams of the 1980s. Since moving to Wanganui she has regularly represented that area but has never before managed par or better in a national event.

Her start was unpromising as she bogeyed the first three holes. She birdied the fourth, dropped another shot on the seventh but played one of the shots of the day to birdie the ninth from four feet.

There were three birdies on the second nine, including one on the par four 15th, where she sank a 15-foot putt.

Lim, a graduate of Brigham Young University in Utah, is a member of a government-sponsored squad who do nothing but play golf.

The 26-year-old was in New Zealand last year and was runner-up to Wendy Hawkes in the national matchplay championship at Russley.

This year she has played as an amateur on the Asian pro circuit, making the cut in the last two tournaments.

She is a very compact player and on a course where approach shots could not be fired boldly at the flags, she managed better than most to find the favourable bounces.

"Today it bounced well for me. Tomorrow it may go the other way," she said. "But I'm pleased I was hitting it so well."

Lim, who comes from Seremban, south of Kuala Lumpur, is one who will not be worried if the fierce heat continues into the weekend.

Ormsby, the local favourite, was six over at the turn, after a double-bogey on the fourth and a triple-bogey on the sixth.

But she played the first five holes of the second half three under, only to lose ground with bogeys on the final two holes.

Bierman, a 30-year-old former Australian, kept her driver in her bag and would have scored even better but for an out of bounds on the fifth.

Seven professionals were invited to play alongside the amateurs and the best round of 76 came from Rotorua player Renee Fowler.

Janice Arnold, now based in England, had a 77 in her first competitive round for three years.

The field will play 36 holes today and the final 18 tomorrow morning.