McLachlin leads by two in O'ahu CC Invitational

By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer

Parker McLachlin's summer vacation in Hawai'i is short, and he's trying to make it sweet.

Parker McLachlin lines up a putt at the third hole. He bogeyed the hole, one of two bogeys in his round yesterday. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

OCC member Eric Sonnenberg had the day's low round of 66 and is in third place at 140. Iolani School student Pomaikai Shishido, the first-round leader, shot 74 and is tied for fourth with Joe Phengsavath at 141.

McLachlin, who finished tied for 16th at the NCAA championships last month, completed the spring quarter at UCLA about one month ago. He returned home and promptly won the Sports Shinko Rainbow Open at Mililani Golf Club.

But since he's already returning to the Mainland next week, McLachlin said he's tried to enjoy his time in Hawai'i away from the golf course.

"I haven't played much; I've been pretty mellow," said McLachlin, 22. "In college golf, we're going for nine months straight, so this is my time to relax, kind of. I've been going to the beach, going to the gym to work out, trying to get bigger and stronger. But mostly I've just been hanging out with my friends."

Starting with an 8:52 a.m. tee time tomorrow, McLachlin will be "hanging out" with two of OCC's own — Sonnenberg and Kop.

"Brandan's a great player, especially at this course," McLachlin said.

The same could be said of McLachlin the past two days. He had no bogeys and one double bogey in Thursday's round of 70, and he had three birdies on yesterday's front nine to make the turn at 2-under 33. McLachlin had three more birdies on the back to come in at 2-under 34.

"I tried to be more aggressive and distance myself from the others," he said. "My mindset was to try and make birdie on every hole."

Kop described his round of 70 yesterday as "not that exciting." He had one birdie and one bogey on the front to go out at an even-35, and made three birdies and two bogeys on the back to come in at 1-under 35.

"My short game is not good like before, but I was hitting my drives long and straight," Kop said. "That would leave me with shorter irons to the green, and I hit a lot of greens today. I had five putts of under six feet."

Kop, 40, is well-known as one of the state's established veterans. But yesterday, he was in the same group as Shishido, 16, and Casey Kobashigawa, 14. Shishido will be a junior and Kobashigawa a sophomore at Iolani.

"I was feeling old out there," said Kop, laughing. "The younger players hit the ball farther nowdays, they're keeping up with us. Their potential is amazing."

'Aiea's Shishido, who shot 67 to lead the pack on Thursday, said his round yesterday did not go as planned.

"It was a lot of scrambling, not the way I wanted it to go," Shishido said. "I just wanted to stay even, so that other people would have to catch up with me. But I had four three-putts today, I didn't know what I was doing on those. Actually my score turned out OK — the round was worse than my score. I guess I made some putts when it counted."

Shishido said he did feel some nerves beginning the day as the leader.

"I got calls all (Thursday) night from everyone saying, 'Eh, I saw you on TV!" Shishido said. "I wasn't used to having the cameras on the course, too. Before I hit, I would have to look at the camera. But it's pretty exciting."

Kobashigawa, who began the day two strokes behind Shishido, was 2-under after 12 holes but then suffered through two out-of-bounds penalties and finished with a bogey on 18 to finish with an 81.