World Junior Golf Championships : They’re Improving South American Relations : Family Plays Host to Maria Olivero, and She Plays Well Enough for Trophy

If and when San Diego’s Jill Wery visits Bahia Blanca, Argentina, she is as likely to see a golf course as a gaucho.

In past years, Wery’s family has played host to foreign golfers from Chile and New Zealand in the Optimist Junior World Golf Championships. This year they welcomed Argentina’s Maria Olivero, 14, who placed second by a shot and won the International Trophy in the 13-14 girls’ division at Balboa Park Golf Course.

“I’ve gotten to know Maria real well,” said Wery, 12, who entered the 13-14 division for “more competition” and finished well back, shooting 88, 84 and 87. “(Her family) has invited me to go to their home sometime. That would be nice.”

What Wery would find is one arid golf course in Bahia Blanca--located about 465 miles southeast of Buenos Aires--and a family that loves to play golf.

According to Olivero’s mother, Marta, the courses here are better than in her hometown.

“Here,” she said, “the ball is always, how do you say, well-placed. There are other good fields in Argentina, but in Bahia Blanca, there is no grass.”

Maria Olivero and her father, Guillermo, have 8 handicaps, and her brother, Guillermo Jr., who played in the boys’ 11-12 division at Mission Bay, has a 12. Maria said she hopes to be at scratch in two to three years.

She has been playing golf less than two years, and this is her first trip out of South America. Her best finishes before the Junior World include a first-place in team competition at this year’s South American Championship in Lima, Peru, and another victory in the Argentine National 4-Day Championship in April.

The competition she faced here wasn’t as tough as she thought it would be. “I expected to do well here,” Olivero said through an interpreter, “but as an international world championship, I thought the competition would be more difficult.”

Leanne Wong of Los Angeles shot 79-85-77 for a 241 total. Olivero shot 84, 80 and 78.

Olivero was invited to play in the Junior World by the Argentine Assn. of Golf, which paid her expenses. The association did not pay her younger brother’s expenses. He finished in the middle of his division.

There are, according to Olivero, only one or two professional women golfers in her country.

“In Argentina, there are good players, but very few,” she said. When asked if she would someday like to play on the Ladies Professional Golf Assn. Tour, she simply smiled and said, “Yeah, sure.”

Temporary roommates Olivero and Wery have trips to Sea World and the zoo on the agenda.

Wery, an eighth-grader at Pacific Beach Middle School, finished second in the 10-under division in 1985, but she was pleased with her showing this year while stepping up a class.

“I hope I can place in the Junior World next year,” Wery said. “I’m happy with the way I’ve played. I was in a slump before this. I think it happens to everyone, like, everyone has a slump, but the Junior World helped me get out of it.”

Wery is from a golfing family herself. Sister Paige is a junior on the women’s golf team at UCLA; her father, Storm, is a member at Torrey Pines, and her grandparents, Emil and Madalynne, play at the Whispering Palms.

Golf Notes

Championships have been awarded in all divisions except the 15-17 boys’ and girls’, which conclude play today. Tee-off times for the final round begin at 7 and 8 a.m. . . . At Torrey Pines North, Christy Erb of Bonita shot a 4-under-par 70 to take a six-stroke lead over Lisa Kiggens of Bakersfield and Christine Drabble of American Samoa, who are tied for third at 226. . . . Kevin Kemp of Greensboro, N.C., moved into first-place with a two-under-par 70. Ramon Brobio of Quezon City, Philippines, is one stroke back at 214 and Chris Whitelaw of Johannesburg, South Africa, who set a course record at Torrey Pines South on Tuesday, has a three-round score of 215. . . . There were two international first-place boys’ finishers: Cosco Oben of Manila, who won at 10-under, and Hye-Shick Min of Seoul, South Korea, in 13-14.