Course whisperer leads Australian Open

BY Liz White | ALPG Tour | 2010 Women's Australian Open | Round Two | 12 Mar 2010

In the never ending quest for perfection players will try anything. But few could match The Handa Australian Open leader, Giulia Sergas.

The Italian revealed after her bogey free 4 under 69 today that she talks to the course, does handstands throughout her round to relieve back pain and has a strong belief in karma.

All of these things, she says, have helped her to a three shot lead on a course she has never seen before.

“I try to establish a relationship with the golf course,” she said.

“We talk to each other and if you listen well and you don’t get caught up in your emotion then the golf course really talks to you.

“When it is a difficult course like this you really have to pay attention what it is saying at the moment.”

Sergas is clearly listening to the whispers from the winds that blow around the Commonwealth course in Melbourne’s sandbelt. And it’s a message that has almost made the 30-year-old’s hair stand up on the back of her neck.

“You better be terrified with this golf course because if you take it easy it is going to eat you up,” she said.

“You don’t really need to hit a straight shot and just bomb it on the fairway, you have to place the ball and I was able to do that today.”

It takes a lot of courage to reveal your innermost thoughts but Sergas is very obviously comfortable with who she is. Doing handstands out on the course doesn’t bother her, or her playing partners, at all.

“I try to hide but they laugh. I really was embarrassed at the beginning but then people just laughed, so I am okay with it,” she said.

Sergas said her back is so bad that she does the handstand to put her back in a type of traction. Her understanding caddy, Lee Griffith, then holds her feet while she does a type of push up to relieve the pressure on her vertebrae.

“It helps my back and pops. When I really concentrate and do it properly, it helps my back tremendously.”

Two Koreans, He-Yong Choi and Soo-Jin Yang, will be paired with Sergas tomorrow and it is hard to imagine the quiet teenagers doing handstands on the course.

19-year-old Choi said yesterday she was disappointed with her even par round but today a 4 under 69 left her in a better frame of mind.

“The playing conditions were a lot better and because of that I could use my short irons instead of the long ones and I made most of my putts today,” she said through an interpreter.

“It was a lot easier to read the greens today than yesterday and maybe because of that I made my shorter putts.”

The Commonwealth Course is a much tougher proposition for the players than last week’s Royal Pines layout. Today only 21 of the 147 competitors broke par and the cut was made a +6. Last week it was even par.

One of those to shoot sub par is four- time Australian Open winner, Karrie Webb who today carded a three under 70 and is in a tie for 4th. She lamented it could have been better had she not three-putted the 13th for her only bogey of the day.

“I threw one away on 13 which was very disappointing but you know it is Friday if that happens on a Sunday you are kicking yourself,” she said.

“The first one was a bad putt and the second one was just lazy, there was a pitch mark in front of me and I didn’t take the time to fix it.”

Just four shots back does not bother last week’s ANZ Ladies Masters winner.

“The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend and four shots is not much to make up,” she said.

In a tie for fourth is rookie pro Rebecca Flood, who shot even par today, and Austrian Stefanie Michl. Playing with Webb tomorrow will not cause Michl any stress.

“I try not to look around a lot. I try to focus on my game,” she said.

“Whenever I feel uncomfortable I tell myself, just one shot at a time. It doesn’t matter who you are playing with, it doesn’t matter where you are at, it doesn’t matter which hole it is, you just play one stroke at a time, as good as you can.”

Michl’s first professional tournament was in Australia three years ago and she feels it is only now that she understands the subtleties of the Melbourne sandbelt courses.

“You really need to know where to put your ball on the green,” the 24-year-old said.

“I feel I have to be precise if I want to make a lot of birdies.”

The leader at the halfway mark, Sergas has only been in this position once before, at last year’s Weetabix British Open. She fell off the pace and finished in a tie for eleventh and has learnt a lot from that experience.

“I remember that the night before I tried to relax too much. I went out with my parents like normal and had two or three glasses of wine and when I told my coach he was like: ‘noooo,” you can’t do that,” she laughed.

“Just do it another way – read a book.”

It’s hard to know for sure what Sergas will be reading tonight _ maybe Horse Whisperer?