TOM Kim, the South Korean seeking to sweep the year’s Philippine Junior Amateur titles, fired a one-under-par 71 yesterday to share the lead with Ira Alido after the first round of the 36-hole classification phase of the match play championship at Alabang Golf Club.
Alido hit a late birdie to catch Kim at the top for a four-shot lead over a slew of other fancied bets, even as Yuka Saso opened up a six-shot lead in girls’ play after matching par 72 at the tight Muntinlupa layout.
Finishing on top would give the No. 1 seed the lightest assignment in the first round of the knockout stages starting tomorrow. Kim won the stroke play championship three weeks ago and is rated highly here.
John Jun, another Korean, fired a 75 with Carlo Villaroman, son of two-time junior world champion Carito, shooting a 76 to be in a tie with Aniceto Mandanas, Tyler Po and Liam Cully.
Ryan Monsalve, a member of the victorious Manila Southwoods team in the PAL Interclub, shot a 77 to be well inside the upper half of the leaderboard.
Hwang Min-jeong and Koh Eun-ah, Koreans both, fired 78s to trail Saso by six with LK Go shooting a 79 and Kristine Torralba carding an 80.
While Kim is looking for a sweep of the junior titles, Hwang is eyeing to hold both the women’s and girl’s match play titles with a victory in the week-long tournament held as part of the PLDT Group National Amateur Golf Tour and sponsored by the MVP Sports Foundation, PLDT, Smart, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and the Philippine Sports Commission.