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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, September 26, 2002

Colbert will play in Turtle Bay tourney

Advertiser Staff

Jim Colbert and Oahu Country Club member Dave Eichelberger are entered in the Turtle Bay Championship. The Senior PGA stop is next week at Turtle Bay's Palmer Course on the North Shore.

2002 Turtle Bay Championship

• WHAT: Senior PGA event

• WHEN: Oct. 4-6 from approximately 7:30 a.m.

• WHERE: Palmer Course at Turtle Bay (Par 36-36i72, 7,044 yards)

• PURSE: $1.5 million ($225,000 first prize)

• FIELD: 78 Senior PGA Tour players, including defending champion Hale Irwin, Hawai'i's Steve Veriato, Isao Aoki, Allen Doyle, Bruce Fleisher, Bob Gilder, John Jacobs, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Walter Morgan, Dana Quigley and Jim Thorpe.

• PRO-AM: Wednesday-Thursday

• QUALIFYING: Monday

• ADMISSION: $10 daily beginning Friday, or $20 three-day pass. Children 17-under free with ticket-bearing adult

• TV COVERAGE (all times HST): Friday, 8-10 a.m., PAX TV; Saturday-Sunday, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., CNBC.

The tournament has 18 of the top 25 on the money list, and the winners of 21 of the first 30 tour events.

Turtle Bay is the 32nd of 35 official 2002 tournaments. It also kicks off the tour's "Aloha Season," which continues in January, when the PGA Tour opens with the Mercedes Championships at Kapalua Plantation and the Sony Open in Hawai'i at Waialae Country Club.

The seniors open their 2003 season with the MasterCard Championship at Hualalai and the Senior Skins Game at Wailea Gold.

Hale Irwin won the inaugural Turtle Bay Championship last year, beating John Jacobs by three shots for his 32nd career senior victory.

Irwin won this event twice when it was played at Ka'anapali. He also won the last three Senior Skins Games on Maui.

Turtle Bay was the site of the first Senior Skins Game, in 1988. Last year it played as the seventh-hardest course on tour, with an average score of 73.290.

• Waikoloa's waiting: If Regan Lee makes all his connections, he will defend his championship at the 29th annual Waikoloa Open this weekend at Waikoloa Village.

Lee is playing in the final round of The Gateway Tour's Epson Tour Championship today in Scottsdale, Ariz.

He plans to fly to Hawai'i tonight and catch a plane to Kona in the morning to make his tee time.

The Waikoloa Pro-Am is this afternoon. The 54-hole stroke play tournament starts tomorrow and ends Sunday. Players tee off from 6:30 each morning. The professionals' purse is $25,000, with $5,000 going to the winner.

Lee led at Waikoloa wire-to-wire last year, finishing at 1-over-par 217 after he double-bogeyed the final hole. Casey Nakama was a shot back. Lee's opening rounds of 70 and 71, and Deron Doi's second-round 71, were the only sub-par rounds of the tournament.

Nakama is back this year and the Professional Flight also includes Ron Castillo Jr., Lance Suzuki, Jerry Mullen and Beau Yokomoto. Some top amateurs are former University of Hawai'i golfer Norman-Ganin Asao and Hilo High senior Gabriel Wilson. Dean Prince will defend his Senior title.

Shannon Sibayan, who won the Hickam Invitational two weeks ago, is going for his third low amateur title in as many years.

Hilo High sophomore Amanda Wilson will defend the A flight championship she won last year.

• Chun to defend: Mark Chun, who won the Mayor's Cup last year in his first tournament back after a stroke, will defend his title this weekend at Ala Wai. Golfers tee off from 6:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Chun suffered a stroke Dec. 12, 1999. After learning to walk, and then golf, again, he made the Mayor's Cup his triumphant return to tournament competition.

Others in the championship flight include Dick Sieradzki, Earl Medeiros, Joe Phengsavath, Wendell Kop, Paul Kimura, Blaine Kimura, Casey Kobashigawa and 12-year-old Michelle Wie.

Juniors Britney Choy, Cyd Okino and Kayla Morinaga are in the Ladies Flight, along with Mona Kim-Lee, who just won her third consecutive State Women's Senior Championship.

• Felchner falls: Maui's Shaun Felchner and his American teammates won just one match on the final day of the Junior Ryder Cup. Europe captured the biennial team match-play event, 9 1/2 to 2 1/2, yesterday. It now leads the series 3-1.

Felchner and his partner, Jennifer Davis, lost to Claire Grignolo and Raphael de Sousa, 2-up. Felchner's team was the only winner in Tuesday's first round.

The matches were played at the K Club near Dublin — site of the 2006 Ryder Cup.

The 24 juniors now go to The Belfry to watch the 34th Ryder Cup, which begins tomorrow.

The inaugural Junior Ryder Cup in 1995 featured then 15-year-old Sergio Garcia leading a winning European squad.

SHORT PUTTS: Mona Kim-Lee won her third consecutive Hawai'i State Women's Golf Association Senior Championship Monday at Waikele. She shot 73. Yoshiko Koyama is the only other golfer to win three in row, from 1995-97. ... Kane'ohe's Paul Kimura failed to qualify for match play at the 2002 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, last weekend at The Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn. Kimura shot 83-85-168. The cut came at 152. ... Former University of Hawai'i golfer Sandra Nakagaki missed the cut at the Women's Mid-Amateur, shooting 79-86 last weekend at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club. Nakagaki now lives in Culver City, Calif. Colette Rosenberg, from Pacific Palisades, Calif., was Hawai'i's qualifier. She shot 82-85. ... The Mid-Amateurs are U.S. Golf Association championships open to players 25 and older. To enter, women must have handicaps of 9.4 or less and men 3.4 or less. ... The ninth annual "Marriott Links to Literacy: A Benefit for the Hawai'i Library Foundation" raised a record $80,000 this year. Net proceeds fund purchases and reading programs for Hawai'i's public libraries. In its first eight years, the tournament has netted more than $320,000.