By By Richard Dark / special to The Star
May 2, 2003
NEW ORLEANS As much as he would have liked, Meridian native Jake Narro was unable to take advantage of the English Turn Golf Course during Thursday's opening round of the 2003 HP Classic of New Orleans.
Narro, who qualified for the PGA event by being the 2002 Gulf States Section of the PGA of America champion, teed off in the afternoon, having to deal with the difficulty of playing on a track worn down by most of the field.
Narro put himself in an early hole and finished the day with a six-over-par 78. It is a three-shot improvement over his first round score of 81 from a year ago.
A trend of foreign players dominating play in New Orleans continued on Thursday as Akio Sadakata of Japan turned in his best competitive round ever, firing an eight-under par 64 to earn a tie at the top of the leaderboard at the end of day one.
Paul Stankowski, who shot a 61 in the opening round two years ago, shares the lead with Sadakata, firing nine birdies on the way to his 64. The two lead a 156-player field that simply had its way with the track, as 112 players finished under par.
While the foreigners were blistering the course, Narros was having his troubles.
Narro began his round on the back nine. After beginning with a par on No. 10, Narro bogeyed the 11th and recorded a pair of pars before a disastrous pair of double-bogeys on 14 and 15
On the latter hole, his approach shot just trickled off the back of the green and found the water.
Rattled at that point, Narro also bogeyed 16 en route to a plus 6 through nine.
But to his credit, Narro played his last nine holes admirably, shooting even par. After making par on No. 1, he responded confidently with a birdie and four more pars to keep himself at plus 5. But back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 7 and 8 pushed him to seven over. Only a birdie on the par 3 ninth hole salvaged the day.