AROUND THE GREENS
Tomori still has sights set on making it to LPGA Tour

By Bill Kwon

"A lot of people ask me how long you're going to keep trying," Christel Tomori says. "I just can't set a time limit." Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

When you talk about determination in golf, there's no better example than Christel Tomori, a reluctant fixture on the Futures Tour. She's still trying to earn an LPGA Tour playing card.

There's no quit in the 29-year-old Hilo native, home from Las Vegas for two weeks before beginning her seventh season as a professional after graduating from the University of Oregon in 1996.

Even a head-on car collision couldn't keep Tomori from her appointed round in a golf tournament in Albany, N.Y., last summer.

She and her boyfriend, Kip Goo, were headed to the golf course for the final round when their rental car was totaled by a driver crossing the center line into their path. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.

"It was very scary. I played that day, but I paid for it the next day," said Tomori, who went on to shoot a 2-over-par 74 but missed the next two tournaments to undergo physical therapy for neck and back pain.

"My body was pretty sore, but I played most of August and went to Q-School after that," Tomori said. She missed passing the LPGA Qualifying School for the fourth year in a row but will try once again this year. She came close to making it in 2001, reaching the Q-School's final stage.

"A lot of people ask me how long you're going to keep trying. I just can't set a time limit. I've learned a lot through the years. I can use all that experience to play better," Tomori said.

"I don't feel like I've reached my peak yet. So, I'm just not going to give up. I'm still enjoying it."

There's even more incentive this year. Besides the top five money winners again earning exempt status on the LPGA Tour, the number of players eligible to go straight to the final stage of the Q-School will double from five to 10. It will now include those finishing sixth through 15th.

For that reason, she and Goo have put their future plans on hold.

"There are things we'd like to do yet. There's still a lot of years ahead of us to get married and have children," said Tomori, who was introduced to Goo a year and a half ago by University of Hawai'i men's golf coach Ronn Miyashiro during a golf outing in Las Vegas.

Shows what riding four hours together in a golf cart can do, Tomori said with a laugh.

Tomori came back home not only to play in last week's Hilo Invitational at her hometown Hilo Municipal Course. She also wanted to be with her mom, Betty, at a very stressful time.

"I need to be with her. It's a difficult time right now for the family business because of all the talk about a gas cap law," Tomori said.

The family owns two Unocal gas stations in Hilo.

"There's such a small margin of profit that the law would drive retailers like her out of business," Tomori said.

She also wanted to be in town for the UH women's basketball team in its season finale Saturday against Fresno State.

Especially since it's also the final game at home for retiring coach Vince Goo, Kip's father.

"I wanted to support him and the UH Wahine basketball team," Tomori said. "It's a family gathering for us."

She'll then leave the following night to prepare for the upcoming Future Tours season in which she enjoys a full-exempt status. Tomori, whose only victory came in the 2000 Connecticut Classic, plans on playing in 16 events, skipping only the first two in Florida. She'll start with the Frye Classic in Wichita, Kan., late next month.

She and Anna Umemura, a non-exempt player, are the only two from Hawai'i in the official developmental tour of the LPGA.

"We travel together, meet for dinner, hang out when we can," Tomori said. Goo, who has a master's in education, caddies for her during the summer when he's not teaching.

Otherwise, Tomori uses volunteer caddies who drive golf carts to carry the players' golf bags only. The players must walk.

Tomori felt like she did OK in the Hilo Invitational as one of four women playing in the men's event.

"It was a fun week. It was nice being back home and supporting the tournament," she said. "But I know I could have played better."

No one is as aware of Tomori's no-quit spirit than her junior golf mentor Earl Tamiya, who remembers when she first took up the game as an 8-year-old.

"She couldn't even hit the ball 30 yards," he said.

The 1992 Waiakea High School graduate went unrecruited, not even a nibble from UH. But Tamiya persuaded the University of Oregon women's coach to give Tomori some financial assistance with the understanding that if she made the team, she'd get an athletic scholarship.

Tomori eventually got a full ride and became the team's most valuable player in her senior year. She also won the Hawai'i State Women's Open three years in a row (1996-98) before joining the Futures Tour in 2000.

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