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Saturday's First Round

At Kahili Golf Course

Championship Flight

Alex Chiarella 71

Mark Shimamura 72

Ron Castillo Jr. 72

Brian Sasada 73

Andrew Feldman 73

Dugal Milne 73

Tadd Fujikawa 73

David Gerken 74

Travis Toyama 74

David Ishii 75

David Saka 75

Larry Stubblefield 75

Steve Murphy 75

Eddie Lee 75

David Havens 76

Kevin Hayashi 76

Brad Bowen 76

Ryan Michimoto 76

Taeksoo Kim 77

T.J. Figueroa 77

Glenn Tamagawa 77

Lee Sakugawa 77

Dean Prince 77

Mike Monaghan 77

Ed Angulo 77

Kirk Nelson 77

Clive Kegel 78

Peter Rice 78

Eliot Gouveia 78

Oliver Saquet 78

Mike Morris 78

Chris Armanini 78

Frank Mickel 79

Mark Micale 79

John Hearn 79

Garrett Okamura 79

Tony Takitani 79

Mike Kawate 79

Steve Sanchez 79

Duane Pacheco 79

Mo Radke 79

Frank Luchowski 79

Reid Fukuyama 80

Justin Keiley 80

Alika Bell 80

Armelio Cabatingan 80

Bruce Erfer 80

Dan Kendrick Dumo 80

David Ishikawa 81

Ryan Lloyd 81

Joel Church 82

Rohn Stark 81

Kevin Carll 81

John Sostman 81

Andrew Wong 82

Max Bonk 82

Nick Mariano 82

Chris De Almeida 82

Wade Nishimoto 83

Logan Goulding 83

Doug Stacy 83

Desiree Ting 84

Dennis Kawachi 84

Desiree Ting 84

Chris Shimomura 84

Lee Hardy 84

Chris Caycayon 85

Robert Cordova 86

Ben Hongo 86

Galen Harima 86

John Bryant 87

A.J. Molitor 87

Kaitlen Miyajima 87

Mike Nubel 87

Haruo Takeda 87

Corey Kozuma 87

Eddie Moore 87

Thomas Cherry 88

Marc Arakaki 88

Malu Rosenthal 90

Riley Harima 92

Adrian Rivera 93

Stephan Molina 94

Grant Shoemaker 94

R.J. Domingo 94

Joseph Delaginte Jr. 94

Benjamin Bello 95

Mike McCraney 99

A.J. Robin 103

__________

A Flight

David Balmores 67

Keith Monaghan 75

Perry Lara 78

Tom Lewis 79

Ilima Kalama 80

Derek Fukuda 81

Michael Susak 82

Stephen Fulton 86

Dickie Moon 93

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WAILUKU --- The odds were against 15-year old Alex Chiarella of Pukalani during the opening round of the Maui Open at the Kahili Golf Course on Saturday.

Besides facing howling winds that manipulated the ball in the air like a surfboard caught in a riptide, and a field peppered with professionals, including Tadd Fujikawa, Chiarella was still in the process of recovering from his second abdominal surgery in just five weeks.

Despite the challenging factors, however, at the end of the day Chiarella had a one-under-par 71, and the sophomore-to-be at Seabury Hall will start the final round Sunday morning a stroke ahead of pro golfers Mark Shimamura and Ron Castillo.

''I feel very accomplished considering I've lost 15 pounds (due to illness), I'm a little string bean,'' Chiarella said.

''I wasn't expecting much out of today. I played golf twice in the past month and a half. My dad and I were looking at this tournament as being a nice prep, nice warm-up for the tournaments that I have coming up.''

Fujikawa, Andrew Feldman, 2002 winner Brian Sasada and Dugal Milne were tied for fourth place at 73. St. Anthony head coach David Gerken carded a 74, as did Travis Toyama.

Fujikawa, who passed on his high school graduation ceremony at Moanalua on Friday night to play in the tournament, birdied the 12th through 15th holes.

''Yeah, it was windy out there,'' said Fujikawa, who has earned $61,892 on the PGA Tour this year, making the cut in three of four events. ''The greens weren't too bad, but there was some pin placement that was really tricky. I didn't putt well today and had some careless mistakes.

''On the back I changed my thinking and told myself to just play my game, don't worry, and it helped a little bit. I had four birdies in a row, made a good comeback and gained some momentum and brought it back. Hopefully tomorrow will start that way and I can get off to a good start. I think I'll be OK tomorrow.''

Seven weeks ago, Chiarella was leading the Maui Interscholastic League championship by one stroke after two rounds when he was forced to pull out after he suddenly became ill because of an intestinal blockage caused by scar tissue from surgery he had as an infant.

''From what I hear from women, the pain is worse than childbirth,'' Chiarella said. ''I went to the hospital and was flown out to Oahu immediately. I had surgery and then had to have another surgery two weeks after. It was a very traumatic experience.''

Though he is still in the recovery process, Chiarella said that the wind --- which he estimates to have been blowing up to 35 mph --- was the biggest challenge on the course.

''I got out at 7:50 and was so shocked with the wind,'' he said. ''I was thinking, 'It's the morning, it's going to be OK.' Boy, was I wrong. It was so windy. Howling, really, at eight in the morning. The greens were lightning-fast. Kahili was my high school home course and this was the fastest it's ever putt.''

Chiarella bogeyed two holes: No. 2, a 358-yard par-4, and No. 17, a 362-yard par-4. He birdied the 527-yard par-5 third, the fifth, a 419-yard par-4 --- which has the reputation of being the hardest hole on the course --- and No. 12, a 557 yard par-5.

''Because of the wind, there were two words for the day: 'low draw,' '' Chiarella said. ''The whole round, my goal was to keep the ball under the wind. I didn't have many downhill putts, and I made all my five-foot putts, thankfully. On number five, the hardest hole, I was looking for par, wouldn't be mad with a bogey. Turns out, I made birdie. Had a nice 25-foot slider on that one putt and was pretty excited.''

Chiarella said he plans to implement the ''low draw'' strategy again today when he begins his round at 10:45 a.m., in a group with Shimamura and Castillo.

''It worked today, hopefully it'll work tomorrow,'' he said. ''It's kind of freaky going in as the leader in a pro tournament. I can't really believe that I'll be sitting there in the final group of the final round with two extremely talented and very good pros.''

Starr Begley is at sbegley@mauinews.com