Or maybe the daughter.

Kiyoshi Murota tees off at 9:48 a.m. at Pearl Country Club at 11-under-par 133. He has a two-shot edge over Minnesota pro Don Berry (68) and three over defending champion Greg Meyer (67) and first-round leader Brett Wayment (70).

That flash in front with the large gallery will be Michelle Wie (8:18 a.m. tee time). At 14, she is 34 years younger than Murota. Wie rallied yesterday with a 4-under-par 68 and is nine back.

It is probably too far to lean on the leaders, but it would be hard to put it past Wie at this point. In the past year she has played in the final round at an LPGA major, become the youngest to win a U.S. Golf Association amateur open event and missed the cut by one shot at the PGA Tour's Sony Open in Hawai'i.

The Punahou freshman has been playing this otherwise all-male tournament since age 12. Yesterday she averaged 280 yards off the tee and was 5-under after eight holes.

"I play with her quite often. I love to play with her," said Hawai'i pro Tommy Kim, the former state long-drive champion who was in Wie's group the past two days. "She was awesome today. I truly believe she could take it pretty deep."

So can others at this $80,000 event.

Murota grinned his way through a 65 yesterday with six birdies, an eagle and bogey. He was 10th on the Japan Golf Tour Organization money list last year and won here in 2002 and 1997. He's played nearly every Pearl Open since turning pro 21 years ago.

"I come from Japan, where it's really cold," Murota said. "Here, not only is the weather warm and but so are is the staff and employees at Pearl. I get a very warm feeling."

He insists he is still warming up for the JGTO season and plans only to "enjoy myself" today. His last words were, "I'll try and beat Michelle Wie. ... She's taller than me. It's not fair."

Meyer, who finished 76th on the JGTO money list last season, knows Murota too well to take him seriously. "I'd enjoy myself too if I was 11 under," Meyer said.

Meyer, from Hilo, has won here — at the course that used to employ him — three times. It would have been four, but Murota beat him in a playoff in 1997.

Meyer's clubs were swiped out of his Hawai'i Kai garage Wednesday night. He played his bogey-free round yesterday with clubs he has now used twice.

"The driver and putter are the only clubs I can really be aggressive with, so that part of my game hasn't changed," he said. "The irons are the most sketchy. I have to play pretty defensively with them and I'm an offensive player."

Meyer figures he needs to get to at least 16 under to have a chance today. Berry was also looking in that area when his bogey-free round made him the clubhouse leader early yesterday. The head pro at Edinburgh USA Golf Club, in Brooklyn Park, Minn., knew the conditions at Pearl were too good for his lead to hold up. But he's been playing here since 1999, and has enough Top-10 finishes to have a realistic shot today.

Wie's gallery started at about 100 yesterday, grew to 200 at the turn, then thinned out on the back nine, which she played in even par.

The crowd was a strange sight at a local tournament and proved distracting without ropes and the regular tour rules. Five volunteer security guards followed Wie's group. But in the first eight holes, while she was burying five birdie putts between two and 12 feet and dreaming of "shooting 63," at least eight cell phones went off. Cameras clicked, carts bothered the players and fans walked away while golfers putted out.

Wie wasn't distracted. She has grown used to the attention.

"I played very well today," Wie said. "A lot better than yesterday. A lot of putts fell in. I was pretty hot on the front nine, but that bogey (at No. 9) kind of stopped my momentum."

Wie would be happy with another 68.

"It would be great if I can go very low and have a chance to win," she said. "But more I'm looking at a score. If I shoot the same as today and at least make the Top 10, I'll be happy."

SHORT PUTTS: The cut came at 3-over 147 with 91 players qualifying for the final round. That includes 19 amateurs. ... Tomonori Takayama matched leader Kiyoshi Murota's 65 yesterday. It is the tournament's low round. ... Casey Nakama's team won the Thursday Pro-Am with a two-ball net score of 109.8. Nakama's amateurs were Les Murashige, Dayton Asato, Kuni Wakida and Jonathan Ota. ...ÊAmateur Shoji Watanabe, from Okayama City, Japan, aced the 178-yard third hole during the Pro-Am, using a 5-wood.