Kruse in the lead at SWAWGC

Deb Filon stepped up to the 16th tee, lined up her shot and stroked it to the green. Even though she ended up with a par, she'll take it.

“Usually you don't like three putts,” Filon said with a smile. “It was as far back as you could possibly be, I think I had like 60 feet to the pin. I didn't even think I could hit the ball that hard to get it up to the pin and I proved that true, then two-putted it in from there for the par, so I'll walk away from that.”

Filon shot an 86, good for a three-way tie for fifth place in Saturday's opening round of the Southwest Arizona Women's Golf Championship at Cocopah RV and Golf Resort.

Mary Kruse ended the day in first place in Flight A with a score of 81. Kruse beat out two-time defending champion Carrie Campbell-Wood by one stroke.

“I had a good day, it was fun,” Kruse said. “My putts were working really well. I was pleased with my putting and pleased with my game in general. Obviously everybody has times where everything doesn't work right and I had a few of those too, but it was a good day.”

Thing's weren't quite working for Campbell-Wood Saturday, who won last year's tournament with scores in the mid 70s.

“My putting let me down today,” Campbell-Wood said. “I didn't putt very well and I limped in on the last two holes. I just didn't make any five-foot putts today, that's the difference. But it was fun, we had a good day, we had a nice foursome.”

It was Kruse and Campbell-Wood's third time participating in the tournament and this time Campbell-Wood brought Filon along for the ride.

“The girls I played with today were such a fun, relaxing group to play with,” Filon said. “Real good golfers and real good people. Carrie told me about the tournament and I play with her in San Diego occasionally and she talked it up. We're RV owners so we said what a great way to get away for a weekend so we packed up the RV and we're parked out there now. We'll have to check for dents after the round, but it's awesome.”