KAHUKU — Sung Ah Yim and Joo Mi Kim share first with Becky Iverson going into today's final round of the SBS Open at Turtle Bay. To put that — and the state of the LPGA — into perspective, Yim and Kim are about as close in age to Iverson as they are to her 2-year-old daughter Emma.

Yim and Kim, South Korea's gold-medal golf team at the 2002 Asian Games, are 21. They were LPGA rookies last year and have known each other since attending elementary school in Seoul.

Kim surged to the top yesterday by shooting a 7-under-par 65 that included an eagle at the Palmer Course. She tied the tournament record set an hour earlier by Lorena Ochoa, on a day that began with spectacular conditions and grew darker by the hour, but dropped little rain.

Yim shot 66, which is the score that left Iverson and Grace Park tied for first after a rain-delayed opening round that ultimately ended early yesterday morning. Iverson followed up immediately with a 69 to cling to first.

Park, whose six victories are five more than the leaders combined, could not keep pace. She went from 26 putts Thursday to 34 yesterday, shot 74 and is five back.

Stacy Prammanasudh, a 26-year-old Tulsa graduate, is only one off the lead at 136. Soo Young Moon, another 21-year-old from South Korea, is another shot back. Both fired 67s. Kyeong Bae, 20, double-bogeyed her final hole to fall into sixth at 71—138.

Sharing seventh are Ochoa, Natalie Gulbis and Hee-Won Han — all off last year's top 10 money list — and Morgan Pressel and Sherri Turner, the youngest (17) and oldest (49) players here.

If Turner wins today, in her 516th LPGA start, she would become the oldest LPGA champion in history and break the record set by 46-year-old Beth Daniel in 2003. If Pressel wins her first tournament as a pro, she would become the youngest LPGA champion in history and eclipse a mark that has stood since 1952.

Speaking of young, Iverson, 38, woke at 4 a.m. yesterday to Emma's crying. That should prepare her for the invasion of youth she will deal with today as she goes after her second win in a dozen years on tour — and first since 1995.

Yim and Kim are going for their first win. Both are bright and funny and extremely precocious. Their golf games are all that, without the humor.

Kim's record score included two bogeys. "If I had played a little better," she told the translator with a grin, "it would have been a lower record."

Yim's last individual championship was the 2001 Korean Amateur. She said she scoured the leaderboard yesterday, and wasn't scared when her name popped up. "No," she told the translator emphatically, before giggling. "I was happy."

So is Iverson, who had to return to qualifying school the past two years to keep her playing privileges after dropping out of the top 100 for the first time in her career. She has been battling a bad wrist and attitude that came, in part, because of her daughter. She has no regrets.

"I don't care anymore," Iverson said, overstating for emphasis. "She is going to love me, no matter what. I just started getting into that 'You don't care as much when you don't play well.' "

She cares enough to have played part time in the new women's division of the Hooters mini-tour before and after the last Q-School. Fields were small and so was the $4,000 first prize — $146,000 less than the winner gets today.

Iverson figures that positive experience (she won twice) is why she is in position this morning. She does not plan to play it safe against a tour suddenly full of young guns who come out blazing.

"When you start to play bad it's really hard to get out of it," Iverson said. "You lose your confidence and you start playing chicken, you never want to go for anything. I think it's a matter of being aggressive again. And it's hard to be aggressive when things are not going your way.

"For me, I got my confidence back playing the Hooters Tour. I lost one in a playoff and played well in the other one right before going to Q-school, so I went into Q-school playing really well. Same thing here. I won one of them (in January) and I took fourth and sixth in the other two. I played well and you can practice being aggressive when there's not a lot of money on the line."

Ochoa is also coming off what, for her, was a disappointing and "draining" year. She made it look easy with her bogey-free round yesterday, in sharp contrast to Thursday's 74. Ochoa said she missed every fairway in the first round, so she couldn't take advantage of the lift-and-place conditions created by the rain.

Defending champion Jennifer Rosales withdrew with an injured finger. Rosales was 3-over for the day and 5-over for the tournament when she quit after nine holes yesterday. Rosales, who also has a bad wrist, withdrew from six events last year. Riko Higashio also withdrew, with a bad shoulder, dropping the field to 130.

Ai Miyazato's debut as an LPGA member took a discouraging turn. The 20-year-old Japanese star finished off the final four holes of an opening-round 70, then got lost on Turtle Bay's big greens. She had 75 in the second round, with 36 putts.

"I'm enjoying my round very much," Miyazato told the TV cameras minutes after she was done. "I'm just having a little problem."

NOTES

Paula Creamer, second on the money list and the 2005 Rookie of the Year, rallied with a 67 and is six strokes off the lead. Former Rainbow Wahine Cindy Rarick (78-153) and Turtle Bay representative Dorothy Delasin (70-147) missed the cut, which came at 2-over 146.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.