Tara Goedeken in hunt after 1 round at U.S. Amateur

After teeing off Monday in the first round of the 2008 U.S. Women's Amateur Championship, Dodge City native Tara Goedeken currently sits in 40th position after her 3-over round of 75 at the Eugene Country Club in Eugene, Ore.
    The top 56 scores will move players into the second phase of the championship, which is in match-play format.
    Goedeken said the round was an all-out grind, and the trees were "ridiculous."
    "I didn't have an easy par all day or an easy birdie all day," Goedeken said in a phone interview.
    The former Kansas state champion birdied the two shorter par-5's, but only after sending drives into trees, pitching out and making the best shots of her round with her 5-iron.
    "I don't think I stuck anything to within 8 feet," Goedeken said. "I just made a couple 10-footers and had to grind it out."
     She said she needs to straighten out her drive in the coming rounds, as her driver routinely put her in the tree-lined rough to the left.
    Goedeken had to chip out of the 5-inch rough on hole 11, a 362-yard par-4, after a drive out to the left but didn't get the ball all the way out and ended up double bogeying the hole. After one of her birdies came at the 485-yard par-5 16th, she missed a drive to the right on 17, bogeyed the hole and 3-putted for another bogey on 18 after one of only a few drives that saw the fairway.
    She played the back nine in 4-over 41 shots after going 1-under on the front nine.
    "I just didn't recover as well on the back nine. As bad as it was, I'm still looking all right," Goedeken said. "I'm just looking forward to getting out there early tomorrow and doing a little better."