Friday, April 16, 2004 | 9:39 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
If you are a religious follower of the LPGA Tour or a teenage boy with typical adolescent urges, by now you are probably well familiar with Natalie Gulbis, the striking touring pro who recently moved to Lake Las Vegas from Sacramento.
Gulbis, who is well on the way to becoming her generation's Jan Stephenson, has had her face plastered across the rear deck of Larry Foyt's stock car at the Daytona 500 and is the only LPGA player featured in EA Sports' Tiger Woods 2004 video game. She also is supplementing her tour earnings with a calendar (to her credit, done very tastefully) that is available for $12.99 at her very own official Web site (NatalieGulbis.com).
Stephanie Louden, another attractive young player from Las Vegas trying to carve out a niche on tour, also has a calendar. Only hers came from a travel agency.
That's not to begrudge Gulbis her good looks, because I've always been one who believes that if you've got it, why not flaunt it?
That's basically what Louden did Thursday in the first round of the windswept LPGA Takefuji Classic at Las Vegas Country Club. Only she flaunted her irons and putter.
The result was an even-par 72 that put her solidly in the mix, just three shots off the pace, starting today's second round of the $1.1 million, 54-hole event.
"Fairways and greens," said Louden, one of five players with local ties who teed it up but the only one who graduated from high school here (Cimarron-Memorial).
She was known as Stephanie Keever then, as she married Mike Louden, her longtime boyfriend from Green Valley and a pretty fair golfer in his own right, 14 months ago. Observant members in her gallery may have noticed that the only place she hasn't updated her name is the underside of her golf bag, which still reads "THE KEEV."
No, she doesn't have a big brother named Wally and her dad, who put a golf club in her hand when she was just 4 years old, answers to Larry, not Ward. But to coin one of Eddie Haskell's favorite expressions in complimenting June Cleaver on her dress, Louden's round on a gusty Thursday was quite becoming.
"I think I hit 16 greens and played really solid," said Louden, who turned pro in 2001 after an All-American career at Stanford. "But I need to get a couple of putts to drop because I rolled it really good."
She made one birdie, one bogey and 16 pars. She said she had five or six makeable birdie putts on her front nine, holes 10-18, but only sank one before the sailboat weather set in for good.
With the winds doing their usual dance off the facade of the Las Vegas Hilton and swirling through the back patios of the ranch homes and bungalows that flank the course, Louden would get just two more birdie chances on the back side.
She hit a wedge to 8 feet on No. 2 (her 11th hole) but misread a downhill putt. On No. 9, the most reachable of the four par 5s, she slid a 6-foot putt past the cup.
"Even that last putt, I hit it just the way I wanted to," said Louden, who plays out of Boulder Creek Golf Club. "It just didn't fall. Probably the worst shot I hit all day was the (putt) on No. 2."
Perhaps Louden's familiarity with LVCC helped her get around it with relative ease, but it's not as if she plays there every day. Plus, it's one thing to play against a freckle-faced opponent from Bishop Gorman who looks at golf as an excuse to skip biology class. It's quite another to play on tour against somebody like Grace Park. The champion of the 2004 Kraft Nabisco, one of the LPGA's four majors, was Louden's playing partner Thursday.
Park, who was constantly stymied by a visor that wouldn't stay on her head, also shot 72 with a round remarkably similar to Louden's.
"I played it right -- a hat and shorts," joked Louden, who showed far less emotion than Park, who disgustedly tossed her ball in the water upon leaving the 18th green. "I'm an experienced wind player, I guess. I like to wear skirts, but you couldn't wear one out here today."
Well, maybe that's not literally true, but Louden had no desire to imitate Marilyn Monroe standing over that sidewalk grate.
Annika Sorenstam? Now that's another matter.
Louden knows she's not there yet, but at 25, there's still plenty of time. Her best finish last year was eighth at the Wachovia LPGA Classic hosted by Betsy King, but her game is starting to shape up to the point where she believes she could challenge for a win.
If you go by her scores, she's getting better with every passing tournament, with place finishes of 54, 53, 48 and 26 in her first four starts of 2004.
That trend could continue here, given her solid first-round score and a new approach to playing at home. Last year, she managed to turn the Country Club into a home course disadvantage, finishing in a distant 70th-place tie (with Gulbis, coincidentally) after spreading herself way too thin with commitments both on and away from the course.
"Last year, I was a little bit overwhelmed about all that had to be done this week. I had to live my normal life, but I had to play in the tournament, too," she said.
But other than doing a drive-time radio interview Wednesday, she has kept her profile as low as her long irons this week.
"I really tried to limit the time I was out there (on the course) before the tournament," Louden said. "Get in, get out, that's it."
So she has had a little more time for friends and family this week. But video golf, she says, will have to wait.
"I'm gonna have to call Tiger about that," she kidded about being bypassed for Gulbis on the cyber links. "But somehow, I don't think it's going to be easy to get his number."
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