Mid-Pac Open's denial of Wie brings out debate

By Bill Kwon

Hal Okita, the general manager of the Mid-Pacific Country Club who will be retiring in June, kidded the media at a recent golf outing, telling them that he had sent a letter to Hootie Johnson asking him why he had to hold the Masters the same week as the Mid-Pac Open.

"If they had allowed (Michelle Wie) to play in the Mid-Pac Open, I can see some male someday saying, 'I want to play in the Jennie K.,' " says Lesly Ann Komoda, who tried to play the Mid-Pac Open in 1994. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Both ran into women's issues before their events.

In Johnson's case, there was Martha Burk. In Okita's, there was Michelle Wie.

Okita was empowered as spokesman for the club's tournament committee that rejected the 13-year-old phenom's application to play in the Mid-Pac Open for the second straight year.

Not an easy decision, considering Wie's jaw-dropping performance in the Kraft Nabisco Championship two weeks before that brought her additional national prominence. Also after Wie made the cut in the Hawai'i Pearl Open, another local major men's championship.

Michelle wasn't too happy, according to her father, BJ Wie. But the family respected Mid-Pac's decision to keep the tournament a men's-only event.

"It's similar to the Augusta National. They're both a private club. It's a private matter and outside members should not influence what they do," BJ said.

Okita would probably agree with Johnson's statement before the Masters that the club will do what is best for it.

Mid-Pac's decision is not without precedence.

Just ask women's golf pro Lesly Ann Komoda. She wanted to play in the 1994 Mid-Pac Open and was turned down.

Komoda, who ironically now works at the Mid-Pac pro shop as an assistant to Mark Sousa, feels for Wie but understands the club's decision.

"If she were a professional, there might have been a controversy. But the club has an event for female amateurs. Jennie K. is there for her to play in," said Komoda, who also coaches the Kamehameha girls' JV team.

Komoda knows that Wie can flat out play.

"When I was 13, I was not even half her level," said Komoda, who won the Jennie K. in 1991 and 1993, the 1992 Hawai'i State Women's Golf Association's Match Play Championship and the 1993 HSWGA Stroke Play Championship.

"She might not have won, but she'd give them a run for the money," Komoda said. "But playing in the Mid-Pac Open should not be her focus. She's got a lot of tournaments she can play."

Unlike Komoda. Except for the women's flight in the Hawai'i State Open, there are no professional tournaments for women locally. The other three of the four women's designated majors — Jennie K. and the HSWGA stroke play and match play championships — are for amateurs.

"If they had allowed her to play in the Mid-Pac Open," Komoda said, "I can see some male someday saying, 'I want to play in the Jennie K.' "

The club is holding firm to its position that Jennie K. is a women's tournament, just as the Mid-Pac Open is for men.

"It would be a whole different story if the club called it an invitational instead of an open tournament," said Komoda, who recalled the fuss when she tried to enter the Mid-Pac Open nearly a decade ago.

Komoda was told to go ahead and submit an application.

"One day it was a go and the next day it was a no," she said.

She was upset about it enough to talk to Mark Henry, then executive director of the Aloha Section PGA, who referred it to the national office.

"They said to file an injunction," Komoda said.

That's when Komoda said, whoa.

"We live on an island. Everybody knows everybody. You're asking me to put a stop to one of Hawai'i's premier events?" she told them. "It was ridiculous. It wasn't worth it. I wouldn't have heard the end of it."

Komoda finally got to do some gender-bending, making the first of several appearances in the JAL Rainbow Open that summer. She missed the cut each time.

A 1986 graduate of St. Francis School, Komoda tried once to qualify for the LPGA Tour. That was in 1993 in Palm Springs, Calif.

It was a dose of reality, an eye-opening experience, Komoda said.

"I probably wasn't ready, but the level of commitment was totally different, something I wasn't expecting. It was 116 degrees and the girls were up at four in the morning, running, hitting balls, playing a round and hitting more balls until nine at night. Me? I wanted to stay in my air-conditioned room."

Bill Kwon can be reached at bkwon@aloha.net.