Rosales ready for US Open

Swing coach Bong Lopez will not be around when Jenny Rosales opens her bid in the rich US Women’s Open at the Orchards Golf Club in South Hadley, Massachusetts Thursday (Friday in Manila). But the ace Filipina shotmaker will be with her brother Gerald, who will act as her supporter and confidant throughout the four-day event featuring the best and the brightest players in the world in the third major championship of the LPGA Tour.

"She’s hitting it well that’s why I don’t see any problem with her game," said Lopez, who failed to join his ward after undergoing a nose operation recently.

Still, Lopez said he’s confident Rosales will be able to make a good account of herself in the record $3.1 million event despite coming off a joint 29th place finish in last week’s Wegmans Rochester LPGA in New York.

But the test will come early for Rosales, who will be teeing off at a rather late time when the winds are expected to blow from all over on a course built for a woman and owned by female-only Mount Holyoke College.

More so, the 25-year-old Rosales, who will start on hole No. 1 at 12:48 p.m., will be hacking it out against two of the most seasoned and fancied players in the fold — many-time major winner Karrie Webb and veteran Liselotte Neumann.

Although Webb’s game has slowed down the last few years in the face of Annika Sorenstam’s surge, the Aussie shotmaker, who boasts of 30 victories on the tour, including a victory in the Kellog-Keebler Classic last month, remains a force to reckon with.

Neumann, on the other hand, boasts of 12 LPGA victories and is fancied to contend for the crown in the event billed as the "toughest test" that the field will face all year.

"It closes down the opportunity for people to win," Beth Daniel said Wednesday. "There are very few players who can win this tournament on this golf course." — Dante Navarro