THE Philippines’s Rianne Malixi shared the early lead in the individual category lead with a four-under 68 while South Korea paced the team competition at the start Tuesday of the 43rd Queen Sirikit Cup at the Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club in Carmona, Cavite.
Two South Koreans broke par at the tough Masters course to open up a one-stroke lead over New Zealand and Thailand and two over defending champion Japan.
The Philippines—behind Malixi’s hot start—was in the hunt three shots behind the leaders.
Seo Kyorim carded a 69 and Yoo Hyunjo submitted a 70 for South Korea’s 139, while Fiona Xu scored the same 68 as Malixi’s and Vivian Lu finished with a 70 for the Kiwis’ 140 for the day.
Thais Thitikarn Thapasit and Achiraya Sriwong tallied 70 each later in the day to also book 140, while Japan was at 141 on world No. 5 Yuna Araki’s 70 and Mizuki Hashimoto’s 71.
Rafy Singson scored with a 74 for the Philippines, which shadowed the leaders at 142. Lois Kaye Go’s 77 did not count in the three-to-play, two-to-count tournament officially known as the Amateur Ladies-Asia Pacific Invitational Golf Team Championships.
“We’re not too far behind but there are a lot of things that we can improve on,” Team Philippines captain Ann Granada said. “We’ll try to fix some and hopefully that will translate into good scores in the second round.”
Malixi said she could have done better.
“I scrambled for pars in the first few holes. I did not play competitive golf prior to Queen Sirikit and getting rid of the rust,” Malixi said. “But when I eagled the sixth hole, things turned around and I got back into the groove.”
“I kinda figured out what was wrong and recovered just in time,” she added.
Avani Prashanht joined Malixi and Xu up front in the individual race with India also carding a 142 total to sit alongside the Philippines in the team standings.