CAVINTI, Laguna. – Pauline del Rosario marred her return to the Ladies Philippine Golf Tour with a three-putt mishap but marked it with a big finish of two birdies in the last three holes as she fired a 69 and wrested a one-stroke lead over Korean Kim Seoyun in the ICTSI Caliraya Springs Championships here Tuesda.
Del Rosario quickly settled down after an early struggle with her putter, gaining strokes on Nos. 4, 7 and 10 then rebounding from a missed-green bogey on the 12th with birdies on Nos. 16 and 18 of the Caliraya Springs Golf Club, fueling her drive for an LPGT victory while on a break from the Epson Tour.
“I actually three-putted the first hole but birdied the last, so I liked how I finished strong,” said Del Rosario, who racked up four victories in running away with the LPGT Order of Merit title in her rookie season in 2017.
But to score a follow-up to her last local victory in 2020 in bubble setup at Riviera, the lone Filipina to have won on the LPGA of Taiwan, also in 2017, stressed the need to keep the ball in play all throughout the remaining 36 holes of the P1 million championship.
“The roughs are a bit tough, there’s not much spin coming to the greens, which are pretty hard. So, emphasis should be hitting it on the fairways,” added Del Rosario, who will be as much as tested as Kim in a second-round showdown with Harmie Constantino after the Korean likewise bounced back from a misfortune on the first hole with four birdies against one more bogey for a 70.
Kim was practically on target from tee to green, hitting all but one fairway and reaching regulation 17 times. But she wrestled with her putter and flubbed a couple of birdie opportunities.
