Rittenhouse’s 65 Leads Uphill Fight at StoneRidge

Colleen Walker said she had the feeling that the front nine at StoneRidge Country Club was an afterthought.

“They wanted to build another nine, and the only land they had available was uphill,” Walker said.

Patty Sheehan said StoneRidge is not “your ordinary golf course” and it has some “funky holes” that keep you thinking.

Lenore Rittenhouse, a regular at the Centinela fitness center--a van that travels with the LPGA Tour--said she was nonetheless “huffing and puffing on the hills” at StoneRidge.

Said Walker: “Physically, you need an oxygen tank after a few holes.”

The players’ comments about the course after Thursday’s first round of the San Diego Inamori Classic were as colorful as the red scores that filled the leader board.

Eleven players are within four strokes and seven more are within five of the 6-under-par 65 posted by Rittenhouse, a former University of Hawaii star who recently moved to Pauma Valley in San Diego County.

Sheehan and Anne-Marie Palli of Cibourne, France, are two shots back at 67.

Six players shot 68 on the short, 6,042-yard course that has six par 3s and five par 5s.

They are veterans Sandra Palmer, 47, and Judy Dickinson, as well as Chris Johnson, Allison Finney, Ok-Hee Ku and Walker, the runner-up at the Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament last week.

Defending Inamori champion Ayako Okamoto, veteran Dot Germain and Lynn Connelly shot 69s.

Nancy Lopez was among the group of seven golfers at 70. Amy Alcott, the leading money-winner on the tour and winner of the Dinah Shore, was at 72.

Nineteen players shot under par, and 15 were at par. The two biggest surprises were Rittenhouse and Palli.

Rittenhouse, who until recently used her maiden name of Muraoka, made four birdies and an eagle in her career-low round.

She is No. 59 on the money list and was ranked No. 128 last year and No. 102 in 1986, but on Thursday, she was No. 1.

“I can’t believe I shot a 65,” said Rittenhouse, whose lone victory in nine years on the tour is the 1983 United Virginia Bank Classic. “I’m flying.”

She was excited, but she said her round was anything but exciting.

“These good rounds are kind of boring,” Rittenhouse said. “I want to play boring golf all week.”

Boring and consistent.

“I’ve led a couple of tournaments when I was younger,” Rittenhouse said, “but usually I followed it up with around an 80. Hopefully, now I’m more experienced.”

Sheehan, who won the Inamori event on different courses in 1982, ’83 and ‘86, was impressed by the challenge StoneRidge presents.

“It keeps you thinking,” Sheehan said. “I like courses where you have to place the ball, work it, do different things.”

Palli made the kind of putts that gave her difficulty when she failed to make the cut in the Standard Register and Dinah Shore tournaments the past two weeks.

“I like the course,” Palli said. “It’s similar to a course where I played in the south of France.”

Palli won 28 major amateur titles in Europe. She remembers defeating Alcott, Lopez and Alice Miller in the junior world championships at Torrey Pines in 1972.

Palli is from a famous sporting family in France. Her father, Jean, is a golf professional who played on the French national basketball team. Her late grandfather, George, was a French rowing champion in the 1930s and a rugby star.

Her brother, Philippe, is a professional golfer in France. Her sister, Veronique, plays golf on the French national team and plans to move to the United States.

As for Anne-Marie, she has struggled she joined the LPGA in 1979.

Her lone LPGA victory was the 1983 Samaritan Turquoise Classic. The past two years she has been ranked 59th and 58th on the money list. This year, she is No. 58.

That’s not the kind of consistency she had hoped for.

“My pro career has been disappointing in some ways,” Palli said. “My game was too up and down. I lost a lot of confidence. I won a tournament, but since I won, I haven’t been playing that great.”

Walker has been playing consistently well lately, finishing sixth, eighth, fourth and second the past four weeks. Johnson, on the other hand, has been inconsistent. She was ranked No. 8 in 1986 and ’87 and this year is No. 26 on the money list. She finished sixth two weeks ago at the Standard Register but was 35th at the Dinah Shore.

“I feel like I’m really close to playing well,” Johnson said. “But you just never know. I felt great today. But a lot can happen in the 24 hours until I tee it up. It’s never the same two days in a row.”

Or two weeks in a row on a tour that has had seven winners in seven tournaments this year. This week, add the intrigue of the StoneRidge course to the competition.

“At least the tees are on level ground,” Walker said.

Tournament Notes

Allison Shapcott, a junior from United States International University who qualified Sunday, shot a 79 in the first round. Shapcott is the only amateur in the field. . . . Jo Ann Washam withdrew because of illness after shooting a 42 for nine holes. . . . Tee time is 7:30 this morning at the first and 10th holes.