Veterans Tamashiro, Ige win Francis Brown 4-Ball
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
Score one for the smaller, more sophisticated guys.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
In a Hawai'i golf world where kids are shredding scoring and age records with shocking regularity, Kent Tamashiro and Roy Ige rode precision and wisdom to victory in the 53rd Francis Brown 4-Ball Championship yesterday at Ala Wai Municipal Golf Course.
Kent Tamashiro reacts after missing a birdie putt on the third hole. He and partner Roy Ige beat Earl Medeiros and Alvin Okada Jr. in the final.
They beat 2003 Wai'anae High graduate Earl Medeiros and Wai'anae junior Alvin Okada Jr. — the reigning O'ahu Interscholastic Association champion — 4 and 2.
The tournament, sponsored by Hawai'i Public Links Golf Association, was held over the past two weekends. Other winners were the father-son team of Tom and Robert Nakagawa, 2-up, over Eddie Augustine and Phillip Tabion in A Flight; and Chris Sera and Shane Kaneshiro, 1-up (37), over George Akeo and Michael Artiaga in B.
Tamashiro, 48, is a resident manager. At 5 foot 3, he was the tallest on the tournament's eighth-seeded team. Ige, 42, works for Green Thumb landscaping. They had never played this event together before, but ousted top seeds Del-Marc Fujita and Garret Omuro in Saturday's quarterfinals.
The secret to their success? "We try not to get in each other's way," Ige explained.
Medeiros, 19, and Okada, 16, were seeded 16th. They swept through two weekends of upsets, taking out defending champion Gary Kong in the semifinals, to reach yesterday's scheduled 36-hole final. It lasted nearly 10 hours.
After utilizing Medeiros' remarkable length and Okada's streaks of brilliance to reach the final, they found a team they could not shake.
Tamashiro and Ige never trailed yesterday. Medeiros and Okada never gave up, despite missing some short putts and Medeiros missing most afternoon fairways.
"We didn't hit the ball that good out there," Okada said. "We just grinded."
The "grinders" scrambled back from deficits to deadlock the match after 18 holes, as both teams shot 5 under. Both also birdied the first hole in the afternoon.
At that point, Medeiros and Okada began to feel confident. Tamashiro burst their bubble with a four-foot birdie putt on the 20th hole (No. 2) to go back up.
Okada's 25-footer on the 24th tied it again. Tamashiro's par two holes later put his team back up.
Okada slam dunked another 25-footer from off the green on the 27th hole, chasing his putt in while a spectator yelled, "Nice putt, boy." Tamashiro, who one-putted half his holes in the afternoon, covered that birdie from 10 feet.
Ultimately, the older guys were too tenacious and tuned in to the 4-Ball format. They relied on Ige in the morning. In the afternoon, Tamashiro seemed to sink everything his putter touched.
No matter how far Medeiros hit the ball or how many monstrous putts Okada drained, Tamashiro and Ige never lost their composure. They had seen it all before.
Medeiros and Okada finally ran out of miracles on the 30th hole. Tamashiro and Ige both lipped out birdies, but Okada could not get up and down for par and Medeiros three-putted to go 2-down.
Both also bogeyed the 33rd hole to go 3-down, then conceded on the next hole when they couldn't get up and down.
"We made it as far as we did by just getting by," Okada said. "We got a wake-up call from this team. We found out how not so great we were playing."
SHORT PUTTS: Wednesday is the entry deadline for Hawaii's U.S. Public Links qualifiers. For information, call 589-2909 or visit usga.org.
Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8043.
