Kodama repeats as state stroke-play champion

By Bill Kwon
Special to The Advertiser

Matt Kodama feels it's time to take his game to the next level.

Kodama

The former University of Hawai'i golfer also won the Nevada State Amateur in 2003 and 2004.

"I'm having a good run, a really good run, to finish my amateur career," said Kodama, who last year earned All-Western Athletic Conference honors, was the low amateur in the Hawai'i State Open and captured the Turtle Bay Amateur.

He will turn pro after next month's Mid-Pacific Open. In May, he'll earn a degree in finance and will play in the Butch Harmon Vegas Tour in Nevada during the summer. He plans on trying for the PGA Tour Qualifying School.

For now, he's savoring his repeat victory in the Hawai'i State Amateur after closing with an even-par 72 for a 72-hole score of 289 — three shots better than Toru Nakajima, a Waseda University sophomore.

"It got a little tight a couple of times," said Kodama, 23, a native of Spokane, Wash.

"I got to 3-under fast and had it in cruise control," said Kodama, who led the 20-year-old Japanese collegian by seven strokes after picking up his third birdie of the day at the seventh hole.

Kodama saw his lead cut to one when he three-putted the par-3 13th. He stopped the bleeding with a birdie at 14, but saw his lead reduced to one again at the par-3 16th when he overshot the green for another bogey.

Nakajima couldn't drop his 10-foot birdie try.

The par-5 17th proved to be the pivotal hole, leading to a two-shot swing as Kodama birdied and Nakajima bogeyed after hitting a tree on his second shot.

"No concentration," said Nakajima, pointing at his head.

Kodama became only the third player to repeat as the Hawai'i State Amateur champion since it began in 1964, joining Paul Spengler and Damien Jamila.