GOLF : Klein in Position for Early Run at U. S. Women’s Amateur Title

By the end of this week, Emilee Klein may just fall in love with Kansas. She might even want to make it her official residence, buy a dog named Toto and spend a lifetime tapping the heels of her shoes together and mumbling, “There’s no place like home.”

Of course, that’s already been done.

What hasn’t been done is a 17-year-old winning the United States Women’s Amateur golf championship. Klein might be on the verge of changing that.

Klein, who will be a senior at Notre Dame High this fall, is threatening to become the youngest U. S. Women’s Amateur champion in history. She opened stroke play in the prestigious event in Hutchinson, Kan., on Monday with a round of 73, and, until late in the day, held a share of the lead with France’s Delphine Bourson.

When the first round was complete, Klein was in a four-way tie for second place, a stroke behind Debbie Parks of Carefree, Ariz., and Amy Fruhwirth of Phoenix.

In Tuesday’s final round of stroke play, Klein shot a 72 for a 36-hole total of 145, one shot off the lead. Fruhwirth is setting the pace after consecutive rounds of 72.

With her performance, Klein moved into today’s match play over the difficult, Scottish-style Prairie Dunes Golf Club. There she will meet a field laden with tournament-toughened college stars and women who have played golf twice as long as has Klein.

The teen-ager from Studio City said it doesn’t matter.

“I’m just playing my own game,” she said. “And as long as I keep doing that, it won’t make much difference who’s in the field or who I’m playing against.

“I think I can win this tournament. I really do. I’m playing so well, hitting the ball so well and putting so well, that I really believe I can win it. There are some great players here and it will be tough, but if I just keep my head into my game, I can do it.”

Confident words. But the confidence comes with good reason, for Klein already has turned in a summer that few golfers could dream of matching.

She began blasting the competition in junior tournaments early in the summer and has not stopped. She reeled off four victories in junior events through June and then, last week, won the biggest junior prize of all, the U. S. Junior girls’ championship in Wichita, Kan., just 35 miles south of Hutchinson. She was the stroke-play medalist and had only a few anxious moments in three days of match play.

“I played well all week,” Klein said of her victory in the junior championship. “In the finals (against Kimberly Marshall of Bermuda) I was a little nervous and it was hard to make birdies, but I really didn’t have to. Under that kind of pressure, in the finals of the biggest junior championship of all, you just have to play steady golf, par golf.”

She did, beating Marshall, 3 and 2, for the title.

In her first try at the U.S. junior championship, at age 14, Klein missed the cut. The same summer, however, she surprised California golfers by winning the state amateur tournament, defeating veteran Mary Budke of Pasadena, an emergency-room physician who was 35 at the time and had won the state amateur title in 1972, two years before Klein was born.

Klein became the youngest golfer ever to win that title.

“I can win this one too,” Klein said. “I know I can win it. The U. S. Amateur feels a lot different than the junior championship last week. The women are older and there are a lot of college girls, really good players. They tend to be the best because they play in so many tournaments all year-round.

“But that’s how I’m playing now. I feel I have a great amount of tournament experience. Winning last week in a real pressure situation just gave me more of that kind of experience.”

Klein said match play is not her favorite format.

However, she has in the past few years done exceptionally well in that head-to-head competition.

“Someone can get hot in match play and take you out of the tournament in a hurry,” she said. “I don’t like it as much as stroke play. I think I play match play well, but stroke play is real golf.

“I haven’t quite figured out why they use match play so much in amateur golf. Stroke play is by far the best test of golf. I guess it keeps tournaments a bit more exciting. Some of the golfers would have no chance at all in stroke play. Match play gives everyone a bit of a chance.”

Some, of course, have a better chance than others.

On the men’s side: Qualifying has started for the men’s U. S. Amateur championship, which will be played Aug. 20-25 at the Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tenn., just outside Chattanooga. Among the area golfers who will be making the trip are Charlie Wi of Thousand Oaks, the 1990 California Amateur champion; Craig Steinberg of Van Nuys; and Mitch Voges of Simi Valley.

Wi, who will be a sophomore at Nevada this fall, finished in a four-way tie for first in a 97-man field playing for six available berths in the U.S. Amateur. Wi had a 36-hole total of 142 Monday at Calabasas Country Club, shooting rounds of 69 and 73. Voges was alone in fifth place with a total of 144.

David Solomon of Woodland Hills shot a 147 and qualified as an alternate for the U. S. Amateur.

At Carlton Oaks Country Club in San Diego County, Steinberg shot matching rounds of 73, grabbing one of six berths from a field of 84.

Not that badly: Steven Haber of Encino notched his first hole-in-one last week, using a driver on the par-3, 230-yard 15th hole at Encino Golf Course.

“I play terrible,” Haber admitted. “Even with the hole-in-one, I shot a 93.”