Saiki takes first round honours

Michelle Wie got the attention, while Kim Saiki collected the birdies in the opening round of the Safeway International.

Saiki, never a winner in 12 years on the LPGA Tour, shot a career-low 8-under 64 on Thursday for a three-shot lead over Annika Sorenstam and defending champion Se Ri Pak.

Donna Andrews and Jennifer Rosales joined Sorenstam and Pak at 5-under 67. Four others were four back at 68.

By far the largest gallery belonged to Wie, with hundreds following the, 6-foot, 14-year-old around the sun-baked Superstition Mountain Golf Club course in the desert 50 miles east of Phoenix, where the temperature topped 90 degrees.

The crowd agonized as Wie, making the first of six LPGA starts this year, shot an even-par 72 that could easily have been a 69.

Playing the back nine first, Wie missed 3-foot birdie putts on the par-5, 552-yard 13th and par-4, 310-yard 14th. On the par-4, 412-yard 16th, she hit a true downhill 20-footer from off the green for birdie for what would have been a birdie, but the ball bounced off the pin and out of the hole.

Wie pulled to 1 under with a 24-foot birdie putt on the par-5, 500-yard second hole. But as daylight faded on the ninth hole, she finished with her only bogey when her second shot went into the deep rough.

"I feel like I should be better," said Wie, who made the cut in six of seven LPGA tournaments last year. "I practice a lot. I had high expectations for this tournament. And I played good. If my putts fell in, I could shoot like 12 under today."

Saiki, who has finished second on the LPGA Tour three times -- twice in 1996 and once in 1997, had one of those days golfers dream about.

"I don't know that I've ever been able to say after a round that I never hit a bad shot," she said. "But I can say that today."

Her round featured eight birdies, no bogeys. Some of her birdies were tap-ins, others were 20-footers. She capped her round with birdies on the last three holes.

"I was very patient, and everything kind of flowed," Saiki said. "I was basically in the zone today."

She never had anything resembling serious trouble.

"I think the only really poor shot was on my 17th hole, and that wasn't even really that bad," Saiki said. "I kind of pulled a 5-iron and I was kind of on the back fringe, but I can't complain about one golf shot that I hit today. This is by far one of the best ball-striking rounds of my career."

Sorenstam couldn't complain much, either, in her 2004 LPGA Tour debut. Coming off her sixth player-of-the-year season, her short game compensated for some uncharcteristically erratic iron shots.

"Maybe it wasn't quite as tidy as I wish it would have been," she said, "but, you know, 5 under, I'll take that any day, especially my first round out this year."

The par-72, 6,620-yard Prospector Course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, is longer than any layout on last season's LPGA Tour schedule. The combination of length and firm greens was supposed to present a bigger challenge than Thursday's scores would indicate.

Pak attributed the lower-than-expected scores to the fact that the greens weren't as firm as they had been in the pro-am and practice rounds.

"Today the greens were much softer," she said. "I was not really expecting to have so many under pars today, but so many players are playing under par because the greens are just so soft. I mean, you can stop the ball on the greens."

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