Posted on: Thursday, May 19, 2005
AROUND THE GREENS
Ting chooses prize over amateur status
| • | Medalist Watabu helps Kaua'i retain state title |
| • | Golf briefs: McLachlin earns $37,500 in match play |
| • | Holes in One |
By Bill Kwon
You, too, can become a professional golfer.
No, you don't have to buy the latest hot equipment, including a 460cc driver with a 45-inch graphite shaft, use Tiger Woods' new four-piece Nike golf ball or take lessons from David Leadbetter or Butch Harmon.
Just take the car if you make a hole-in-one.
For the average golfer, it's no big thing. Take the car and drive off.
But for Maui's Desiree Ting, it meant losing her amateur status to play in all of the women's amateur championship tournaments, including the Jennie K. Wilson Invitational.
Ting and her good friend, Bobbi Kokx, two familiar faces in the Jennie K. over the years, missed this year's 55th annual outing at the Mid-Pacific Country Club in Lanikai.
Kokx, who won the Jennie K. in 2000, had a valid reason to miss it this year.
"I'm a home owner now," said Kokx, who bought a home at the Dunes at Maui Lani Golf Course. "I just moved into my new home, putting in a yard and all that. And I had relatives visiting."
Ting's reason is one rarely heard in local golf: She's a professional in the eyes of the United States Golf Association, hence ineligible for the Jennie K.
Ting, 27, became a pro the instant she accepted a Dodge Ram truck, worth $40,000 fully loaded, after making a hole-in-one.
She aced the Makena South's par-3 13th hole on April 16 in a benefit tournament for the Maui Arts & Cultural Center sponsored by Central Pacific Bank. Under USGA rules, a player loses his amateur status by accepting a retail prize worth more than the allowable $750.
Ting knew the consequences but didn't take long after the ball went into the hole to decide whether to give up the truck or the amateur status.
"I kind of made up my mind then and there," said Ting, a 2000 University of Hawai'i graduate and member of the Rainbow Wahine golf team.
Any second thoughts?
"It's worth it," replied Ting, who, incidentally, just started working for Central Pacific Bank at its Kahului office.
One of the first to get a phone call from Ting was Kokx, who was her UH golf coach.
"It looks like I'm going to caddy for you," Ting told Kokx, who plans on playing in the Hawai'i State Women's Golf Association Match Play Championship next month, another event Ting can't enter.
"That is so cool," Kokx said about Ting's second career ace. Her decision's cool, too, according to Kokx, a teacher at Kihei Elementary School.
"If I had a hole-in-one? I'd buy everyone drinks and I would probably take the car, too." Or truck, in this case.
Ting already has submitted an application for reinstatement as an amateur to the local golf association for review. It then will be forwarded to the USGA for a decision.
It's usually a two-year wait, but according to the USGA, a period of one year is typically granted for those who have accepted a nonconforming prize as a result of making a hole-in-one.
The waiting period begins from the date of the act contrary to the rules of amateur status. The application and processing fee is $100.
"I want it back and hope I can play in the Jennie K. next year," said Ting, who nevertheless will keep on trucking.
Taking a hole-in-one vehicle and forfeiting amateur status is nothing new in local golf.
NOT THE FIRST
Art Fujita, a member of the Hawai'i Golf Hall of Fame, also lost his amateur status after winning an automobile in a tournament on Kaua'i in 1973.
It wasn't even for a hole-in-one.
"Toyota sponsored the tournament and nobody had a hole-in-one for the first five years. So they gave it for the closest to the pin," recalled Fujita, who had to wait two years before regaining his amateur status. It cost him a chance to play in the 1975 U.S. Men's Amateur Public Links Championship at his home course, Wailua.
The record for the quickest reinstatement to amateur status in local golf belongs to Allan Yamamoto. He was a "pro" for less than four months before really turning pro some 15 years later.
He and Jerry Johnston, then Waialae Country Club's head golf professional, represented Hawai'i in the 1969 World Cup in Singapore that October. Hawai'i had its own team then for the last time. Orville Moody and Lee Trevino played for the U.S. team.
The International Golf Association, which sponsored the event, paid Yamamoto's expenses. Around $1,500, he recalls. The USGA took away Yamamoto's amateur status.
The USGA was inundated by letters from Hawai'i, including one from Gov. John A. Burns, asking that Yamamoto be reinstated because it was thought that the IGA had cleared it with the USGA. By February, Yamamoto was reinstated after reimbursing the travel expenses. In March, he won the Hawai'i State Amateur Championship and that summer he represented Hawai'i in the 1970 men's public links championship in Chicago.
"So, you're the guy. My whole desk was full of letters," USGA official Frank Hannigan told Yamamoto when he recognized the Hawaii golfer's name during the pre-tournament registration.
Bill Kwon can be reached at bkwon@aloha.net.
