KAHUKU — Three golfers with vastly different future plans played for a place in this year's U.S. Women's Open yesterday at Turtle Bay's Palmer Course.

Amy Yang, a South Korean with an Australian lilt to her newly mastered English, took the prize. She will tee off in the LPGA's third major later this month at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in North Carolina.

Yang, 17, shot 77-74 for 7-over-par 151 at typically breezy Turtle Bay. That was three better than Maui 13-year-old Kyung Kim (77-77) and six ahead of Miki Ueoka (79-78), who just graduated from Kaua'i High.

These three might never see each other again.

Yang already has a tour victory, capturing the 2006 ANZ Ladies Masters on the Ladies European Tour. The LET's youngest champion ever was offered tour membership soon after and turned pro.

She has played seven tour events since, winning approximately $50,000 between classes at Robina High School in Australia, where she moved to in 2005 to work on her game. She will graduate in November and hopes to qualify for the LPGA Tour about the same time, then play on both tours next year.

Kim, who just finished seventh grade at Maui Waena, is also moving. This summer she and her family will relocate to Arizona to make it easier for her to get to high-level events, much the same as Kimberly Kim and Chan Kim before her.

Kimberly Kim qualified for this year's U.S. Women's Open by becoming the youngest winner in the history of the U.S. Women's Amateur last year, after moving to the Mainland. Chan Kim, the 2006 state high school champion while at Kaimuki, took off for Arizona after capturing this year's State Amateur Stroke Play.

Ueoka will move to California in the fall. She has a golf scholarship to Santa Clara and is contemplating medical school after she gets her degree.

But for one day, they walked together twice around the Palmer, in an Open Sectional format that is a grind for those who golf for a living. The teenagers were whipped when it was over, particularly Kim, who is so small (5 feet 1, 108 pounds) she looks as if she could fit in her golf bag.

"It was a fun experience," she said, "but toward the ending I was getting tired."

Kim and Yang were tied at the break, with Ueoka two back. Ueoka's deficit grew on the front nine in the afternoon. She made the turn in 42 as she continued to struggle to hit greens. When Ueoka finally quit worrying about the wind and the gravity of the moment, she started to beam in with her approach shots.

She had six birdie putts inside 12 feet on the back nine and drained half, including a kick-in on the closing hole.

"At that point it was just go on your instinct," Ueoka said. "Don't try and figure it out because the wind ... you can't put a number on the wind out here."

Kim played her last seven holes in 1-under, one-putting the final four after fighting her short game nearly all day. But three straight bogeys around the turn (9-10-11) proved painful.

"She is very good and very young," Yang said. "When she grows up, she will be able to play very well."

Yang could not be caught after that. She barely missed a fairway or a green in the afternoon and made the 6,400-yard layout look too short, hitting just five drivers all day and still having short clubs into most greens.

"She is a great ball-striker," said Ueoka, first alternate last year out of the Hawai'i sectional. "It was pretty fun to watch."

All that kept Yang from a lower score were Turtle Bay's greens, which were dramatically slower than those she has been playing on the LET lately. "All the putts were short," Yang said with a shrug.

The Open will be her first LPGA event and "big tournament," according to Yang. Her goal is top 10.

Kim's goal the rest of the summer is to play well at the upcoming U.S. Women's Public Links, and qualify for the U.S. Girls and U.S. Women's Amateur before she moves. Ueoka's schedule is similar, while she tries to fine-tune her short game for college.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.