CARMONA, Cavite, January 24 ------ Filipina teen Rianne Malixi fired a five-over par 75 on Thursday at Manila Southwoods' Masters course to begin a historic campaign as the first woman to compete at the Philippine Open in more than two decades.
Malixi, who swept the US Women's Amateur and US Girls Juniors titles in a big 2024 campaign, had a double bogey, three bogeys and not a single birdie in a Masters layout that stretched 7.138 yards but reduced to par-70 for Asia's oldest Open. "I was hitting it pretty straight today but I just had four bad holes," said Malixi, looking spent but still with a smile in her face as she faced mediamen after submitting her scorecard. "I'm not really disappointed because I know I was hitting it straight and I was rolling [the putts] really well."
The last two women to play in the Open - Ria Quizon and Heidi Chua in 2004 at Riviera - both missed the cut by a mile, and it looked like Malixi is bound to suffer the same fate unless she conjures up a magical second round on Friday. The five-over round placed the Filipina rising star in a tie for 122nd place with the second wave of players in the afternoon flights yet to finish. The Top 65 and ties will make the halfway cut, which at posting time stands at two-over. As dire as five-over sounded, it wasn't half bad considering the highest-ranked Filipino in the 142-player field, two-time Philippine Open winner Miguel Tabuena, finished at 4-over 74 while another former champion, Angelo Que, did worse at 76.
The leader, Sadom Kaew Kaewkanjana of Thailand, fired a five-under 65. Malixi said this was hands-down the longest course she ever played in competition. She remembered taking on a course in Japan that measured over 7,200 yards, but the firm fairways, she said, made it play 'two, three clubs' shorter. In contrast, Southwoods' Masters layout featured three inch-high roughs, ultra-fast greens, and fairways that were trimmed around the edges, making for bad breaks that bedevilled a lot of players in the Asian Tour-sanctioned US$500,000 event. One such bad bounce cost Malixi dearly. Her drive on No. 11 trickled into an awkward lie in a fairway bunker, forcing her to play out. One bad pitch that left her in the hazard fronting the green and two putts later, she had a double-bogey 6 on the card. "I had a kind of unlucky bounce into the edge of the bunker, had to play out, then I just hit a really bad shot on my third, that I had to play out from the hazard and two-putted from there," said Malixi.
Malixi said she missed only four fairways in all, and not by much. But each one cost her, only because she was at a disadvantage hitting out of the rough "because I'm small so I don't have the [club] speed to get out of the rough." Still, the 17-year old sounded undaunted at the end of her round, saying she is looking at this Philippine Open campaign both as a chance to make history and an opportunity to learn from the pros in the men's ranks. "I'm honored to play in the Philippine Open, since not everyone is invited to play here, let alone a girl in a men's field," she said. "So I'm just soaking it all in this week and hopefully, I can learn a lot from the men."
And is she still thinking about the 36-hole cut? "Well, heading to this week, I just wanted to make the cut. But right now, it's kind of like a gray area since I scored high today," Malixi said. "But for tomorrow, I'll just stick to it, hopefully hit more fairways and give myself more room to score."
Source: spin.ph
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