Pierre-Henri Soero has a business plan for golf that begins days after the Western Athletic Conference Championship, which starts tomorrow in Reno, Nev. It is only fitting for a senior on the Dean's List at the University of Hawai'i Business School, who has been near the top of the Rainbow Warrior leaderboard the past four years.

Soero will turn pro May 12 and apply for the PGA Tour Qualifying School. On his entry for the upcoming U.S. Open — he was the Hawai'i qualifier two years ago — he already checked "pro."

It is a done deal for a driven guy who could become the first tour player from New Caledonia, a tropical French territory 3,800 miles from Hawai'i, with a population of 230,000. Soero's father, who is Indonesian and French, and his mother, who is French, both grew up there.

"He has the desire; he believes," said Jerry King, Director of Guest Relations and Kapalua Golf Academy, who has worked with Soero the past two years. "That's a big thing in golf, for life or business.

"He can back it up with great physical talent. Like Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, he's a big physical guy. He's very strong. Power is never a problem. You've got to take that race horse and saddle him up so he has control. He's a great putter and wedge player too. We're trying to work on his game management and decisions and working it all out."

Soero has put much thought into this, from the moment his parents sent him to high school in Paris. He heard about UH from a Tahitian friend and took a year off to work on his English and test scores. He got in contact with UH coach Ronn Miyashiro, who offered only a chance.

Miyashiro didn't hear from Soero again until he got a call from a UH administrator the first day of school about a "guy who doesn't speak much English but said he was on the golf team." Soero got to Hawai'i, registered and found housing on his own, then went from walk-on to a primary part of the team for four years.

Soero recalls it as "pretty crazy," but still went to team qualifying at Ko'olau and played five rounds in even-par.

"So I was like, 'OK, you're on the team,' " Miyashiro recalled. "He got a scholarship the next year and has gotten better every year since."

His finest hours came the first summer he stayed in Hawai'i. Soero played the 2005 U.S. Open at Pinehurst after qualifying here, was in contention at every local tournament, and reached the Manoa Cup semifinals, shooting a series of rounds in the 60s. Then the French Federation sent him overseas for the French Open, where he missed the cut by two.

He rolled on last season with three top-10 collegiate finishes and a top 20 at WAC, where Hawai'i's fourth-place finish was its best in a decade. Soero was named all-WAC second team.

This year has been humbling. Soero and King chose to make swing changes with an emphasis on the long-term. Soero's 69 in the last round of UH's last tournament was only his third round in the 60s this season.

Still King, who believes Soero is "on a mission to go to the next level" is encouraged: "It's mainly just been his putting. He used to make everything."

Soero is philosophic. "Most of the time you have more failure than winning in golf," he said. "You cannot win every time unless you're Tiger Woods. It's tough to practice hard every day and not play good and wake up the next day and have to do it again. But you have to set up your golf first and see where you want to be. If you want it bad, you have to grind."

He will be grinding the next several months. He will try to qualify for the U.S. Open — with Rainbow Wahine basketball player Pam Tambini, his girlfriend of three years, caddieing again — then play the Kona Open and graduate this summer.

He has a built-in deadline. Soero is on a student visa that ends two months after graduation. "Practical training" would give him another 14 months in the U.S. He is hoping PGA Tour membership will extend that.

Tomorrow, the focus is on the wide-open WAC. The conference doesn't have a team ranked in the top 80. The winner gets an NCAA bid; everybody else will probably go home.

"We have all the ability in the world to win that tournament," Miyashiro insists. "The conference is not that deep. If we play like we did at Fresno (fourth, UH's best finish this season), I think we can win."

Soero and juniors Travis Toyama and Ryan Perez are the three 'Bows with stroke averages below 74. The team is ranked 116th nationally and ninth in the Southwest District, which sends six teams to regionals.

NOTES

Pierre-Henri Soero, Cody Wolfenbarger, from Idaho, and Scot Miller from California are the seniors on this year's team. ... Californian Kamden Brakel signed a letter of intent to play for UH next season.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.