Rebels’ Oh pleased with first day’s effort

Adam Candee

Friday, April 16, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

Sunny Oh seems to have this whole thing backward, but that has not hurt her yet.

Monday's qualifying round for the LPGA Takefuji Classic brought out the nerves for the UNLV sophomore golfer, but she battled through them to shoot an even-par round of 72 to grab a berth in the field.

Oh calmed down in Thursday's opening round at Las Vegas Country Club, saying that she had "more smiles" throughout the day. But her score went up two strokes, thanks to tough conditions and putting woes, to a 2-over 74, good for a 47th-place tie.

Despite carding just one birdie, Oh still sits just five strokes off the four-way lead at 3-under going into today's round.

"It was a different feeling from qualifying," Oh said. "It was really different. Everything was comfortable. Me and my friends were talking and everything was relaxed."

It looked that way on the 18th hole, as Oh calmly spun a wedge over the water back to about 18 feet before draining the downhill birdie putt. That, Oh said, was the highlight of her day on the greens.

"Putting was a struggle today," Oh said.

Oh did not have any three-putts, but still did not feel comfortable with the putter. In addition, Thursday's tough winds were no kinder to Oh than they were to anyone else.

"It was very hard to control the distance," Oh said.

Despite those struggles, Oh feels that the experience of playing with the pros is reward enough to getting into her first LPGA tournament.

"I learned a lot from the two professional golfers," Oh said. "They were awesome and I had fun. No nerves today."

It is all part of what Louden considers to be a stronger effort to advertise the event.

"I think it's definitely been better than last year," Louden said. "Both Natalie Gulbis and I went on radio shows (Wednesday). We went on a couple of different stations in the morning, so hopefully people at drive-time heard it and kind of were interested in that."

Tournament director Jim Webb said leading up the tournament that it would be such last-second pushes that could attract more fans in the fickle entertainment market of Las Vegas. Just about 1,000 tickets were sold in advance for the three-day event and crowds were sparse Thursday on a workday marked by howling wind.

As Louden -- a Cimarron-Memorial High graduate -- knows well, nothing gets done in Vegas without knowing someone.

"It's just kind of word of mouth," Louden said. "Everyone I talked to that was here last year said, you guys are awesome and we can't wait for you to come back. And hopefully, they just tell their friends and I think that's the best way, no matter what kind of advertising happens, until they hear personal experience or know one of us."