Rosales won the NCAA college title at Southern California as a freshman in 1998. Park led Arizona State to the team title that season and was voted player of the year.
"We’re competitors," Park said. "I’ve beaten her a lot, and she’s beaten me a lot over the years."
Park won the first LPGA major of the year at the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Rosales wonders if she’s next.
The 25-year-old Rosales, still basking in her first LPGA Tour victory last month in Atlanta, took a small step Thursday in the LPGA Championship. Her bogey-free round of 5-under 66 at difficult DuPont Country Club gave her a one-shot lead over Karen Stupples, Gloria Park and Chiharu Yamaguchi.
"My round was pretty smooth today," Rosales said. "I hit a lot of fairways. That was the key. I missed a lot of putts out there. I kept putting and putting until I made some, and kept going."
It took her all the way to the lead, the first time she has ever led an LPGA event after the first round. And Rosales knows it’s just that — one round.
"It’s a pretty good start for me," Rosales said.
But all she had to do was look down the leaderboard to realize how much can change over 54 holes, especially with defending champion Annika Sorenstam and Grace Park, her old nemesis, just two shots behind.
They were at 68, although they arrived in entirely different fashion. Sorenstam got mad and closed with two birdies. Park got lucky, then wound up finishing with two bogeys.
What got under Sorenstam’s skin was a bogey on the par-4 seventh, her 16th hole.
After missing the fairway so far to the right she was completely blocked by trees, Sorenstam gambled by trying to punch a 7-iron from an uphill lie in deep grass, under the branches and around a tree, hoping to get it into the bunker some 110 meters (120 yards) away.
Instead, she advanced it only 36 meters (40 yards) and had to power a sand wedge over a pine to the front of the green, leading to bogey.
Next up was the 191-yard eighth hole, the toughest at DuPont.
"Just one of those great shots," she said. "That was a key hole, and to finish with birdie made it sweeter."
Her final birdie was no less spectacular. From 214 meters (238 yards) in the fairway, Sorenstam went for the green with "the hardest 4-wood I’ve ever hit in my life."
It climbed up the slope and stopped 30 feet below the hole to set up a two-putt birdie.
Rosales is best-known for her clothes — an orange shirt to match her orange headband; she’s got a lot more in an assortment of colors in the closet — and her reaction to her victory last month in the Chick-fil-A Charity Classic, where she paced nervously by the scoring trailer, and broke down when no one caught her.
The confidence appears to be paying off, and she already is becoming a big star in her homeland. The only thing she missed was the party in the Philippines.
"It’s crazy right now," she said. "They were upset because I didn’t go home, but they were going to have this big parade for me or something. I’ve got to stay here. It’s too tiring for me to come back and forth. When I get back there, I hope they’re going to make another one for me.
"I have to win again."
This would be a great week to do that.
Playing with Hall of Famer Juli Inkster and Frechwoman Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, Rosales put herself in the lead in a major for only the second time in her career – and first since a career-best 65 thrust her into the pole going into the final round of the 2002 British Open.
She got there with consistent play that saw her hit 12 of 14 fairways and 14 of 18 greens – as well as spectacular wedge shots that set up birdies inside 15 feet on four holes.
The six-time Philippine Ladies Open champion birdied all three par-5s actually, but the only time she got up in two was at the 16
