Finishing 13th in the 19-team Sycuan Collegiate Invitational Tuesday didn't faze the University of Hawai'i men's golf team and its coach, Ronn Miyashiro.

They just wanted to complete their final round at the Willow Glen Course in El Cajon, Calif., and get the heck out of there.

The raging firestorm sweeping San Diego county gave the Warriors enough anxious moments to interfere with swing thoughts. They were playing at the only golf course open in that area because the freakish Santa Ana winds kept the smoke away.

"It was hairy, unbelievable," Miyashiro said. "It was very, very dicey for a little while. I've never seen anything like it.

"The fire was north and south of us. You're looking at a hill and can see smoke on the other side and at night you can see the glow of the fire."

"It was crazy," said senior Ryan Perez, whose 54-hole score of 228 led the team. "You saw smoke everywhere. Luckily, the wind was blowing the other way from us."

How crazy was it?

Two former UH golfers, Matt Kodama and Pierre-Henri Soero, were scheduled to play their first round in the PGA qualifying tournament's first stage in Santee just 10 minutes away.

The air quality there was so bad that the opening round was postponed. So Kodama and Soero drove up to watch their ex-teammates play.

"They may not have the qualifying," Miyashiro said.

"We had to fly through clouds of smoke when we left the airport in San Diego," Perez added.

Perez received some good news upon his return. Although he didn't have enough points to make the 12-member amateur team for next month's Gov. John A. Burns Challenge Cup, he got in as the first alternate.

And only because of different strokes for different folks in interpreting an NCAA bylaw by Miyashiro and Casey Martin, University of Oregon's golf coach.

Sean Maekawa, a freshman on the Oregon golf team, finished third in the point standings behind Casey Watabu and Brandan Kop. But Maekawa decided not to play in the Governor's Cup because he was told it might jeopardize his college eligibility for playing in an event involving outside team competition.

"I'm going to miss it," Maekawa said. "It's a great opportunity, but there will be other opportunities."

Miyashiro views the NCAA bylaw differently, saying it's a school-by-school interpretation. As far as he's concerned, the Governor's Cup falls in the offseason since college golf has two seasons — fall and spring.

"Each school has an interpretation of what is 'in season' and 'out of season'," Miyashiro said.

UH's fall golf season officially ends Nov. 8 after its last fall tournament, and doesn't begin again until Jan. 14. The 35th Governor's Cup is scheduled for Nov. 26-27 at the Mid-Pacific Country Club.

The only other collegiate golfer qualifying for this year's Governor's Cup is Kurt Nino, a Damien School graduate who's a junior on the University of San Francisco golf team.

According to amateur team captain Phil Anamizu, Nino has said he will play.

Watabu is not playing because he decided to turn pro. The 2006 U.S. Men's Amateur Public Links champion from Kaua'i will be making his play-for-pay debut in the first stage of the PGA national qualifying next week in Hollister, Calif.

Except for Perez and Nino and fortysomethings Kop and Jonathan Ota, this year's amateur team is dominated by high school standouts. Eight of the 12 are teenagers.

Chan Kim, who won the Hawaii State Amateur, will come back for the event. He's now attending high school in Chandler, Ariz.

The others are Punahou School's Bradley Shigezawa and Alex Ching, Pono Calip (Kamehameha-Hawai'i), Lorens Chan ('Iolani), Taeksoo Kim (St. Anthony), Henry Park (Waiakea) and Alex Chu (Maryknoll).

Ching's making the team is probably the most remarkable of all. He qualified by doing it in the only two tournaments he entered — placing third in the Turtle Bay Amateur won by Shigezawa and winning the Oahu Country Club Men's Invitational. They were the final two tournaments determining the amateur point standings.

The victory in the 44th annual OCC Invitational last week was an in-house triumph for Ching, whose parents, Steve and Kori, are OCC members.

The 12-man professional team will be named following the Prince Resorts Hawai'i State Open Nov. 15 to 18.