From the moment Tadd Fujikawa flashed his final huge smile of the Sony Open in Hawai'i, his life has been stuck in a teenage time warp. Fujikawa kicked his career into fast forward by turning pro at 16. Now, those that surround him speak mostly of patience.

His life, figuratively, is somewhere between sprint and slow down. Literally, he is all over the map with his latest tournaments in the Swiss Alps and Boise, Idaho.

Fujikawa came down from the Alps and Omega European Masters talking about the beauty of Switzerland, feeling "a lot of aloha" in a small village called Crans-Montana and a precocious golf game "I can't control."

"I really need to figure out why," he said. "I either get too excited or I'm trying to force it or something. My game wasn't too good (in Switzerland)."

He missed the cut for the third time in three professional tries. His fourth start is tomorrow in the Nationwide Tour's $675,000 Albertson's Boise Open, one of four events remaining from the tour's first year (1990). The tournament is known for its creative marketing and large charity contributions and the city embraces the players in the PGA Tour's "minor league."

Four years ago, it embraced 13-year-old Michelle Wie, who drew huge crowds at her second start in a men's event. This week, it is opening its arms to the 5-foot-1 Fujikawa, its latest, greatest sponsor exemption. That great grin is plastered on six huge billboards around town.

Tournament director Jeff Sanders describes Fujikawa as an animal — an untamed, charismatic breed of Tiger, to be exact.

"Tiger Woods has game, but he also has that smile. He has charisma and always goes hard," said Sanders, who played the Hawaiian Open five times when he was on tour. "What I saw in Tadd was the same thing. Obviously, he had game that week. He was burning the grass off the golf course at Waialae, but I also saw that smile and excitement and animated personality.

"So many guys on tour these days, they try to stay level. I like it when a player shows emotion and is real. I saw that in Tadd. He's a player nobody has gotten to and told, 'You can't go up and down. You've got to be level.' I saw personality and emotion and excitement. I thought he handled interviews very, very well. I thought the kid had the whole package. I've been around and I think he's special."

Fujikawa spent last week working with his coaches at Sea Island, Ga. The focus was consistency, fine-tuning and "game-day" adjustments, with twice-daily fitness training emphasizing flexibility and core muscles. Fujikawa has swing, putting and fitness coaches at Sea Island, and the plan is to work with them three or four times a year.

"He's got a lot of natural talent, very good fundamentals," said Sea Island Director of Instruction Todd Anderson, whose other students include Brandt Snedeker, who just set a single-season earnings record ($2.8 million) for a Nationwide Tour graduate on the PGA Tour. "I've worked with tour players since 1994 and I think he has a lot of raw talent, but there are a lot of things he has to learn to compete at that level. There are a lot of little things it takes to be successful on tour — in between shots, out of the rough and bunkers, and putting on greens with all those changes. We're expanding the horizon that he has grown up with."

Anderson would like to see Fujikawa play a few weeks in a row, to find a rhythm and work out the adrenaline rush that has hurt him on the early holes of his last three tournaments. "He works so hard between events," Anderson said, "and when he gets to an event he's like a race horse who just wants it so bad."

In that, Anderson sounds just like Fujikawa's closest followers. They have been preaching patience that July day they announced the dramatic decision to turn pro. Nothing has changed two months into Fujikawa's teenage time warp.

"One thing I've told him all along is every time he tees it up in a tournament he is trying to learn something — what he did well and not well, what he could have done differently," Anderson said. "I've told people you can't evaluate how he does this week or next week or even this year. You've got to give him time to learn what he needs to do to be successful out there and then evaluate. You can't compare a 16-year-old kid to guys who have been playing competitive golf 10 or 12 years.

"If he gets hot and confident and things start going his way, can he get it going? Yeah, just like Sony. I'm not sure he knew what he was doing, he just went out and did it. For him, the biggest thing is to continue to have fun, learn and try to get better in the areas he's struggled with. A lot of times it takes several events to figure out what you need to get better."

Anderson describes Fujikawa as "very realistic" in his approach to the game and his unusual teenage journey. He is willing to take whatever the next step is — this week and this year and for the next several years — to build a career for the ages.

"We keep building so in four, six, 10 years ... he will be 26; that's a lot of time for him to get better," Anderson said. "We're not going to rush it. He needs to improve a little everyday. When the journey is done, we'll see how it went. I don't think we'll know if this was the right decision until five or six years from now. There are a lot of different ways to get to the PGA Tour — college, mini-tours, Nationwide. Let's hope this is the right way for him."

"Golf is my life basically," Fujikawa said. "I'm really happy I made the decision to turn pro. I'm learning a lot, really enjoying myself at tournaments, having a lot of fun. It's just a blast for me. I'm always learning."

NOTES

When Tadd Fujikawa knocked his second shot in from 285 yards out for a double eagle, on his last shot at the Omega European Masters, he was given a special "Double Eagle" watch by the Omega company. Double Eagle watches are going for between $2,400 and $3,300 on www.amazon.com.

The watch was given to Fujikawa by former "James Bond" Roger Moore, who also sat with the Fujikawas at a sponsor's dinner in Switzerland — and entertained them. "He is super funny," Tadd said of Moore. "He's a joke."

The Fujikawas also were approached by tournament organizers to play in the Asian Tour's Midea China Classic this week at Guangzhou, China. Agent Kevin Bell said the family "chose to play the Albertson's because it is a great tournament on the Nationwide Tour and it also fit with his travel schedule to Sea Island and his school schedule."

Boise organizers have kept Fujikawa busy. He attended a sponsors' "Team Reception" Sunday and sat at a VIP table Monday at the Pro-Am Social Hour and Dinner at Boise Center. In front of the crowd of about 700, he was interviewed onstage by Golf Channel analyst Jerry Foltz. Yesterday, Fujikawa joined other pros in the Idaho Statesman Junior Clinic and he is playing in today's Pro-Am.

Kevin Stadler, who played with Fujikawa the first two rounds at the Reno-Tahoe Open, won last year's Albertson's Boise Open. At Monday's Kraft Shoot-Out in Boise, the teams of Bubba Watson and Stadler, and Jason Gore and Jason Zuback, earned $1 million for charities. Stadler hit his tee shot on the par-4 15th to 4 feet, 3 inches of the hole.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.