No easy path for Sophia’s title bid

Normal, Sports
Source:

The National, Wednesday 1st May 2013

 THERE will be no easy path for defending PNG Open women’s champion Sophia Cragnolini to retain her crown.

She heads the field when the competition tees off at the Royal Port Moresby Golf Club today.

She is ready but it will be an enormous task for the 17-year-old of Italian and Chinese ancestry to stroll over the Port Moresby greens. 

She will face 14 women, including 2013 Morobe Open amateur champion Margaret Lavaki and season campaigners in Lady Captain Ros Taufa and the national champion Kristine Seiko.

Seiko won the PNG championship tag at Easter’s National Golf Championship in Lae.

Tournament director Darren Stocks said Cragnolini should not ex­pect an easy win as the other 14 women were vying for the amateur championship tag.

Cragnolini represented the country at the 2011 Greg Norman Junior Masters and Australia at the WorldJunior Championship.

She is a member of the high performance team at the Hill International Golf Academy on the Gold Coast, in Australia.

In the men’s amateur division, young Port Moresby International School student Brian Takiri is aiming for his third major title.

Takiri,18, completed Year 12 at the Port Moresby International School last year.

He won the national golf championship in Lae two months ago, and followed that up with the Morobe Open. If he wins the PNG Open on Sunday, he will become the first local to win all three major golfing tournaments in one year.