AROUND THE GREENS
Hawai'i junior players schedule busy summer

By Bill Kwon

Mari Chun, who hauled around her mother, Lani, at the Hawai'i State Women's Match Play Championship, will be traveling a lot this summer. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

For these kids, it's have golf clubs, will travel.

Besides Michelle Wie, whose next outing will be the LPGA Evian Masters in France July 21 through 24, perhaps no one has booked more travel time than 16-year-old Mari Chun, an incoming Kamehameha Schools senior.

Talk about a whirlwind tour of golf since winning her second Interscholastic League of Honolulu title in three years in April.

Winner of the Hawai'i State Women's Golf Association Match Play Championship two weeks ago, Chun just played in the 36-hole Callaway Hawai'i State Junior Golf Championships at Hokuli'a on the Big Island yesterday and is trying to qualify for the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship today at Honolulu Country Club.

She hopes to join Wie and Jennie K. champion Amanda Wilson at the Women's Amateur at the Kahkwa Club in Erie, Pa., Aug. 9 through 14.

Chun had just returned from Colorado where she and Stephanie Kono took two of the four qualifying spots for the U.S. Girls Junior Championship. The national final will be at the Mira Vista Golf Club in Fort Worth Texas, July 19 to 24.

Chun is one of 38 local golfers competing in next week's Junior World.

If that wasn't all, she had also qualified for the Westfield Junior PGA Championships in Ohio that same week.

The ILH girls' player of the year opted to play in the more established Junior World instead, opening the way for first alternate Kelly Nakashima of Maui. Kono, who is also in today's women's amateur qualifying, will be at Westfield as well.

"It's too bad the two conflict," said Mary Bea Porter-King, head of the HSJGA, who got a telephone call from three-time U.S. Women's Open champion Hollis Stacy after she conducted the junior girls' qualifying at the Valley Country Club in Aurora, Colo.

Stacy kiddingly got on Porter-King's case because two of her junior golfers grabbed half the spots in the Colorado qualifying. If nothing else, it proved the depth of Hawai'i's young talent as Kono and Chun finished first and second.

Chun said she went there "by accident." She had hoped to qualify for the U.S. Women's Public Links Championship here and planned to qualify for the U.S. Junior Girls at Colorado on that trip. By not qualifying for the Public Links, she was able to enter and win the match play title, her first local major. It turned out to be the best of all possible worlds for her.

Also qualifying for the U.S. Girls' Junior Championship are Kayla Morinaga and Ayaka Kaneko, both of Honolulu and Sacred Hearts Academy, and Kimberley Kim, a Waiakea Intermediate student who will be 13 next month.

Interestingly, Chun (15 to 17), Kaneko (13 to 14) and Kim (11 to 12) took medalist honors in their respective age groups in the local Junior World qualifying. The other two medalists were Cyd Okino (9 to 10) and Alexandra Kaua'i (7 to 8).

Representing the boys will be a strong contingent led by medalists Travis Toyama (15 to 17), Kauai's T.J. Kua (13 to 14), Bradley Shigezawa (11 to 12), Christian Yagi and Ryan Kuroiwa (9 to 10) and Skye Inakoshi (7 to 8).

Tadd Fujikawa, 13, a back-to-back Callaway state champion, and Wilson are also playing in the Junior World, earning exemptions after their third- and second-place finishes last year.

Other qualifiers in the boys 15-to-17 division are Kaua'i's Allan Baab, who defended his Callaway State Junior boys championship yesterday, and state high school boys champion Kurt Nino from Damien.

Playing in the U.S. Junior Amateur at the Olympic Club in San Francisco on July 19 to 24 will be Sean Maekawa of Pa'auilo, the local qualifier at the Dunes at Maui Lani.

And 15-year-old Jacob Low of Hilo qualified for the Westfield Junior PGA Championships next week to round out a quickie list of young golfers representing Hawai'i across the nation this summer.

Wie, who showed that she clearly belonged in the U.S. Women's Open and is the real deal, not a novelty, might be the most nationally recognized golfer from the Islands. But Hawai'i's junior golf program is producing a lot of other talented players as well.

He's no shark bait

Mauna Kea teaching pro Kevin Hayashi went fishing at Hilo Bay with his girlfriend, Ada Nagao, last weekend when she accidentally dropped her expensive Oakley shades overboard.

"How deep is it here?" she asked.

"About 25 feet. Why?" Hayashi replied.

"I lost my sunglasses."

"You're diving in for them?"

"No, you are," she said sweetly.

Hayashi tried three times, groping without success on the murky bottom.

Later, out of breath, he looked down and saw a shark flash by.

"I'll buy you a new pair," he told Nagao.

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