Korea leads after Day 1

TRINITY, TEXAS - The golfers at The Spirit International Amateur Golf Championship at Whispering Pines Golf Club didn’t mind a little breeze, or a gale for that matter. The wind huffed and puffed, but could not blow the scores up.

After round one, Team Korea leads the 72-hole team best-ball tournament at 11-under par. Defending champion England trails by one. Korea is also tied with Canada for the women’s gold at 6-under, while on the men’s side England leads Australia by three after a 9-under par effort. England’s Gary Boyd and Canada’s Sue Kim lead the field in birdies with seven and five, respectively.

The course is called “Whispering Pines” because of the sound the wind makes as it blows through the trees. Today it was Screaming Pines. The wind blew at a steady 25 miles-per-hour with occasional gusts as strong as 37 mph. Not a problem, said England’s Daniel Willett.

“We said before the tournament that if it was windy it would be good for us,” Willett said. “We play in this all year round.”

What’s more, the fast and hard links courses that the English play in the summer are good preparation for the speedy greens at Whispering Pines. That England went low in these conditions is no surprise, but Korea isn’t exactly known for its wind.

“A couple weeks ago we played the course (at our school) and it was twice as windy as this,” Bi-O Kim said with a smile. “We didn’t do anything different out there.”

Lurking three shots back of Korea are the Canadians, thanks in large part to Sue Kim, who despite being only 16 was runner-up at the Canadian Women’s Amateur this year. Kim has some harsh words for those who don’t think Canada can take home The Spirit medal.

“No one thinks Canada is a big deal,” she said. “But we’ll show them.”

And then there’s the United States. The women’s team of NCAA All-Americans Amanda Blumenherst and Tiffany Joh struggled with the wind and the slick greens and shot a 2-over 74. Afterwards both were kicking themselves for their performance on the par 4 ninth hole: both took three shots to get on and then three-putted.

“That (hole) was just a nasty, long, ugly blur,” Joh said.

Fortunately the young American men’s team, 2007 Junior Amateur champion Cory Whitsett and No. 1-ranked junior Peter Uihlein picked up the slack, shooting a 5-under 67, tied for third-best among all 24 men’s teams. Whitsett, a 16-year-old Houston native, trails only Boyd and Germany’s Maximilian Kieffer in total birdies. Whitsett is confident that despite trailing by eight, the United States is not out of it.

“They’re not going to play that good everyday, and our girls are not going to play that bad every day,” Whitsett said.

U.S. Team Captain Ali Jarrett said it’s just a matter of the girl’s team shaking off an uncharacteristically bad round.

“(The girls) are going to be fine,” Jarrett said. “Some of the putts just didn’t fall, but Tiffany had a lot of good looks at birdie. They finished strong (with two birdies), and that’s going to lead to a good morning. No worries.”

The Spirit is scored by adding the best-ball scores of each of the 24 countries’ men’s and women’s teams. There are also medals given for low men and low women, as well as individual medals for the male and female golfer leading the field in birdies and eagles. Play continues tomorrow and concludes on Saturday.