Resort Trust Ladies Friday: Mitsuka, Arimura, Yokomine--Get Used to Those Names

Scoring was high during the first round of the Resort Trust Ladies, but Yuko Mitsuka, Chie Arimura, and Sakura Yokomine lead the pack of 8 who were able to go under par. Mitsuka posted the only sub-70 round of the day, a 4-birdie 69, while Arimura matched her birdie total but made an extra bogey. Yokomine's 71 was nothing to write home about, unlike Yukari Baba's, which included 5 consecutive birdies on the front (31) and 2 straight double bogeys on back (40). Maiko Wakabayashi also seesawed her way to a 32-39-71. The two bogeys in her last 3 holes by Akiko Fukushima and walkoff double bogey by Shinobu Moromizato to drop them, too, to -1 on the day paled in comparison. But this is still anyone's tournament, and defending champion Mi-Jeong Jeon is only 3 back, despite her own pair of double bogeys.

Here are the top 10 and notables:

1st/-3 Yuko Mitsuka (69)
2nd/-2 Chie Arimura (70)
T3/-1 Sakura Yokomine, Akiko Fukushima, Shinobu Moromizato, Maiko Wakabayashi, Yukari Baba, Li-Ying Ye (71)
T9/E Mi-Jeong Jeon, Bo-Bae Song, Yun-Jye Wei, Nobuko Kizawa, Mayumi Nakajima, Yoshie Suzuki (72)

T15/+1 Yuri Fudoh, Erina Hara, Tamie Durdin, Mie Nakata (73)
T25/+2 Midori Yoneyama, Rui Kitada, Na Zhang, Sakurako Mori, Rikako Morita (74)
T35/+3 Hiromi Mogi (75)
T39/+4 Miho Koga, Hyun-Ju Shin, Miki Saiki, Hiroko Yamguchi, Julie Lu, Mayu Hattori, Yuki Sakurai, Mai Arai, Da-Ye Na (76)
T58/+5 Nikki Campbell (77)
T67/+7 Woo-Soon Ko (79)
T75/+8 Yuki Ichinose (80)
T91/+10 Ah-Reum Hwang (82)
102nd/+14 Riko Higashio (86)
WD Akane Iijima

With the cut line coming anywhere between +3 and +7 tomorrow, it's going to be a real dogfight just to play all 3 rounds. But by the same token, one low round on moving day can bring almost anyone back into this thing, provided the usual suspects don't also go low. Hoping to be able to watch some of this thing tomorrow and Chiba and the next day in Okinawa!

[Update 1 (10:24 pm): Well, we won't be able to see it in Chiba--Ryo Ishikawa and the men are gobbling up the network coverage--so maybe in Okinawa.... In the meantime, another name to get used to, Hee Kyung Seo, is in the hunt this week on the KLPGA!]