Futures Tour Friday: Q-School Preview

The Futures Tour comes to LPGA International this week for the iMPACT Invitational, the site of 2009 Q-School. Coincidentally, one of the sectional qualifiers will be held at Mission Hills, site of the Kraft Nabisco Championship, and just like in Rancho Mirage, the wind was blowing hard in Daytona Beach today. Paola Moreno was the only player in the field to break 70, and she did it in style with a fantastic 67. When you look at the bottom of the leaderboard and see that Hannah Yun and Su A Kim (84), Kristie Smith and Sara Brown (81), Sarah Lynn Sargent and Briana Vega (80), Nicole Hage and Angela Oh (79), Kim Welch and Esther Choe (78), Onnarin Sattayabanphot (77), Violeta Retamozo and Dewi Claire Schreefel (76), and Maru Martinez and Naree Song (75) all failed to break 75, you know the conditions were tough. Still 16 players broke par and 26 shot par or better, 7 and 12 more than who did so the 1st round of Q-School, so you know that the competition on the FT will be equally tough. Only 3 of my preseason top 10--Song-Yi Choi (71, T10), Mina Harigae (72, T17), and Alison Walshe (72, T17)--handled the wind well. Let's see where they stand after 54 holes, though.