MANILA, Philippines—Kim In-jae of South Korea birdied his final hole—the ninth—for a two-under-par 70 Tuesday to take a one-shot lead over defending champion Rupert Zaragosa and countryman Park Min-ung after the opening round of the 20th WWWExpress-DHL RVF Cup Amateur golf championship.
Kim picked up a shot on the relatively easy par-5 hole of Canlubang’s North to move a stroke ahead of Zaragosa and Park, who were engaged in a fierce battle in another group over the course that played tough-as-nails.
Justin Quiban, a member of the national pool like Zaragosa, lay three strokes off the pace with GJ Katigbak shooting a 75 to be in solid contention.
Zaragosa, the many-time national champion who is seeking a rare repeat victory here, didn’t really get going with only one birdie over the tree-lined, wind-raked layout he knows like the back of his hand.
Kim capped his back-nine rally with that closing birdie after having dropped shots on the 11th and 12th holes to trail Zaragosa by two.
Ira Alido and Aniceto Mandanas carded identical 76s for joint sixth with Korean Ji Hyok-chung and Cebuano parbuster Wei Wei Gao.
Meanwhile, women’s action gets going today with the junior standouts looming as the prohibitive picks in the 54-hole event in the absence of members of the rock-solid Team ICTSI crew led by Princess Superal.
Harmie Constantino, Felicia Medalla and Bianca Pagdanganan head the women’s field. Musong R. Castillo