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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, July 28, 2005

'Professors' link their love of game, friendship

By Bill Kwon

The Professors, from left: Mike Hopewell, Norman Shimabukuro, Sam Rhoads, Frank Mauz, Cris Camit, Joe Holtzmann, Tim Wilson and Glenn Fujita. The group meets at the Kahuku Golf Course at least once a week to play together.

Sam Rhoads photo

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Golf isn't just about Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie. Tiger makes millions at it and so will Wie one day. But it is also about enjoying the game, the camaraderie, the bonding.

Nobody better exemplifies the spirit of the game than a bunch of guys called "The Professors," who play the sporty nine-hole Kahuku golf course every week. Three times a week during the summer months.

"We have a hard core of eight regulars and sometimes up to 12 players," said Sam Rhoads, 65, who teaches computer science at the Honolulu Community College.

"It's a male-bonding thing. We have drinks afterwards and talk about everything," said Rhoads, who started playing with the Kahuku gang in 1992 along with two other HCC instructors, Frank Mauz and Tim Wilson. They brought along Norman Shimabukuro, who is in charge of security at the community college.

The group also includes Joe Holtzmann, a science teacher and testing coordinator at Kahuku High School; Glenn Fujita, a Kahuku Elementary School teacher; Cris Camit, a retired Kahuku High math instructor; and Mike Hopewell, a former professor at the University of Oregon's college of business.

Hence the group's academic nickname, "The Professors."

They were first called that by Eleanor Christostomo, a starter at the municipal course for the past five years.

"They're a really interesting bunch of guys. They make their own spreadsheets and scorecards. They really have so much fun," said Christostomo, a 1979 Kahuku High graduate.

The group keeps a record of all their rounds and the scores they have shot on every hole to devise its own "Kahuku Handicap" in order to determine a low-net winner.

Camit, the group's most accomplished golfer with a 3-handicap for nine holes, is the handicap chairman, a task he naturally fell into with his math background. Undoubtedly, he is audited by Wilson and Mauz, math instructors as well.

There is no doubt, however, about the group's love of the Kahuku course along O'ahu's North Shore. With its flat, sandy terrain and strong ocean winds, it is the closest thing to a Scottish links course in Hawai'i.

The rates are thrifty, too. The green fees for 18 holes are $8 on weekdays and $10 on weekends for those with kama'aina ID cards, and $10 and $20, respectively, for nonresidents. It is even cheaper for seniors, 65 and older.

There are no golf carts, so you have to walk the par-35, 2,699-yard nine-hole layout which was originally built in 1937 for Kahuku Sugar Plantation workers. It is now one of five municipal courses on O'ahu.

"We love it. But we don't want anyone else to know about it," said Rhoads, who took up golf again after suffering a heart attack in 1990.

He owns the bragging rights by being the last one in the group to get a hole-in-one. He did it five weeks ago on June 22, the same day he got his first-ever ace in 2001.

"I played 50 years before I got my first one and only waited four years for my second," said Rhoads, who used a pitching wedge to ace the 110-yard fourth hole, which, by the way, is featured in the August issue of Golf Digest.

The Professors take their holes-in-one seriously.

They each throw a quarter in the pot every time they play, and whoever gets an ace, receives half the accrued money. Rhoads collected $80.25, while Shimabukuro, who aced the fourth hole in January, came away with $105.

The pot, or "tontine," an annuities scheme in which the benefits, other than that taken out for an ace, keeps on growing and goes to the last surviving contributor.

"Whoever survives will get it," Rhoads said. "We figure either Joe or Glenn will outlast us all. They're the youngest."

Holtzmann, a 1987 University of Hawai'i graduate and former distance runner for the Rainbows, is 42. He's two months younger than Fujita.

At least Holtzmann has dipped into the pot once, acing the first hole on July 25, 2003 — we told you these guys keep records — while Fujita is still looking for his first hole-in-one.

Wilson's ace on Nov. 6, 1998, came before the idea of creating a tontine. Prior to three years ago, the group had only chipped in to buy a special golf cap for a hole-in-one. It still does, according to Wilson, 58, but now an ace is more rewarding.

With four of the nine holes being a par-3, the odds of getting a hole-in-one are greatly improved in an 18-hole round at Kahuku. So an ace is constantly on everyone's mind.

Not all aces count toward the tontine. It has got to be made while playing with the group or forget about it, according to Rhoads.

Camit, an early retiree at 62, has recorded seven aces, including at least once at every one of the course's four par-3s, and also a double-eagle 2 at the 552-yard, ocean-side seventh hole. But none while playing with the group.

"Oh, they're waiting. They keep ragging me, telling me, 'You sure you ever had a hole-in-one?' " Camit said.

"We're kind of on his butt because he's the best golfer in the group," Rhoads said.

Hopewell, a "40-hour volunteer" at the Kahuku Community Health Center when he's not golfing, has two aces at Kahuku. But only one is officially in the books.

"Tough guys. They only count one because I was playing with a Mainland visitor the other time," said Hopewell, 65, whose wife, Naty, is Camit's cousin.

Mauz, 60, who lives in Nu'uanu and has the longest commute, got his only career ace at the fourth hole on June 26, 2001, when his tee shot hit the fence behind the green and ricocheted into the hole.

He'll take it. An ace is an ace, especially when it's for bragging rights among The Professors.