KAPOLEI — The second-day leader in the Fields Open in Hawai'i doesn't play golf just to see her name in the headlines.

She doesn't compete on the LPGA Tour for the satisfaction of hearing her name mentioned on television.

And, really, when your name is Stacy Prammanasudh, how could you?

She has a one-stroke lead with a two-day total of 134 but on the scoring standard that travels from hole to hole that kind of 10-under-par success meant there wasn't room for all 12 letters yesterday. Just as there often isn't in headlines.

When The Golf Channel talks about her, it is often as "Stacy P." When the gallery shouts encouragement by name, it is "Stacy P." or just "Stacy."

"I'm pretty used to it," Prammanasudh (pronounced PRAH-mahna-sood) has said after 27 years of experience.

Her marriage to Pete Upton, who now caddies for her, afforded the opportunity to make a change for brevity's sake three years ago. But Prammanasudh declined and her name stretches the width of his shoulders on the caddie bib and the breadth of the bag he totes.

"I've always been called Stacy P., so I decided to stay with that," she said. "That's how people know me." Indeed, when Prammanasudh signs autographs it is also "Stacy P."

And she was signing several yesterday huddled under the clubhouse eaves at Ko Olina amid the 3-hour rain delay that fortuitously immediately followed the end of her round. One that had 7 birdies and 3 bogeys and sent her into the clubhouse with a one-stroke lead over Angela Park, who has yet to finish her second round in the rain-abbreviated field.

It turns out her Thailand-born father, Pravat "Louie" Prammanasudh, gave his Oklahoma-born daughter more than a name to stand out. Remarkably this self-taught golfer helped pass on a game that commands attention as well. Until recently her father, a mechanic by trade and a golfer through what he painstakingly gleaned through books and magazines, was the only teacher she really had. Largely her caddie, too. For the most part the only one of either she needed to earn a scholarship to Tulsa, all-Western Athletic Conference and All-American honors.

But Prammanasudh's first LPGA tournament title in 2005 gave her a taste of winning. Then, last year, a place inside the Top 20 in earnings ($653,000) prompted a look at the big picture. "I figured playing great golf last season that I just needed something that's going to make me really consistent throughout the whole, entire year instead of having ups and downs." That took her to coach Bill Harmon in California where Prammanasudh said, "I started taking lessons for the first time in my life."

The results so far at Ko Olina, where she has led or shared the lead through two rounds, have given her a leg up in pursuit of a name nobody will have trouble with: champion.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.