Rittenhouse Leads With a 65 After an Uphill Battle at Poway

Colleen Walker said she had the feeling 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 tournament were as colorful as the red scores that filled the leader board.

Eleven players had scores within four strokes of the six-under-par 65 posted by Rittenhouse.

Rittenhouse, a former star at the University of Hawaii who used her maiden name of Muraoka until recently, made four birdies and an eagle in her career-low round.

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

Two shots back were Sheehan and Anne-Marie Palli of France.

Palli’s only LPGA win in nine years on the tour was the 1983 Samaritan Turquoise tournament. She won 28 major amateur titles in Europe and is from a well-known French sporting family.

Six players shot 68s on the short, 6,042-yard course that has six par-3 holes and five par-5s. They were veterans Sandra Palmer and Judy Dickinson plus Chris Johnson, Allison Finney, Ok-Hee Ku and Walker.

Defending Inamori champion Ayako Okamoto, Dot Germain and Lynn Connelly were at 69, while Amy Alcott, the leading money winner on the tour, had a 72.