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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 1:32 p.m., Saturday, June 23, 2007

Girl who beat Kono wins U.S. Women's Publinx title

Advertiser Staff

Mina Harigae of Monterey, Calif., who birdied her last three holes to oust Honolulu's Stephanie Kono yesterday, continued her birdie binge today in winning the scheduled 36-hole final of the 2007 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links Championship at Kearny Hill Golf Links in Lexington, Ky.

Harigae, 17, had seven birdies in her opening round and 10 over 33 holes to defeat 20-year-old Stephany Fleet of DeWitt, Mich., 4 and 3.

Harigae lead 5-up after the first 18 holes. She held a 6-up lead through 30 holes, only to see Fleet win the next two with birdies to make it interesting. The match ended at the par-3 33rd hole when both players made 3s.

Yesterday, Kono led Harigae 2-up with two holes to play. But Harigae birdied the two holes and birdied the first playoff hole to knock out Kono, who became the fourth Hawaii player in five years to advance to the quarterfinals. In 2003, Michelle Wie won this event. In 2004, Wie was a runner-up. In 2006, Kimberly Kim also finished as a runner-up.

Kono, a 17-year-old incoming Punahou School senior, battled just to get into match play. Following two rounds of medal play in which the field of more than 150 golfers was trimmed to 64 spots for match play, Kono found herself tied with seven others for five spots in match-play field.

She earned the final 64th spot. In the first round of match play Wednesday, Kono upset No. 1-seed Tiffany Lua. Kono then won two matches on Thursday before falling in a heartbreaker to Harigae.

Information from www.uswapl.org was used for this report.