KAHUKU — For everybody who has looked longingly out an office window on a cloudless day and wished they could be spending it on a golf course, this is for you.

Paige Mackenzie is living your dream.

Yesterday, she was doing it from a share of the three-way lead after the opening round of the SBS Open.

If Mackenzie had pause to reconsider her decision to run, not walk, away from a promising career in financial planning, it wasn't in her debut as an LPGA Tour member yesterday at Turtle Bay. If the 2006 University of Washington business graduate missed the 9-to-5 routine this wasn't the day. Not when her 5-under-par 67, built on six birdies, vaulted her into a share of the lead with Paula Creamer and Sherri Steinhauer.

On a picturesque North Shore day when the surf was pounding, the sun shining and the birds singing, Mackenzie found ringing reaffirmation of her life's plan just days after her 24th birthday. "This," she said nodding her head, "is where I want to be. It is where I need to be."

As natural and clear as that sounds now, it wasn't where she was headed at this time even two years ago, finishing up an All-America golf stay with the Huskies. Back then, as a junior, she had a three-days-a-week job with a high-powered financial planning outfit in tony Bellevue, Wash., her foot in the door on a chosen career path. "I wasn't thinking about professional golf as a job," Mackenzie said. "I worked very hard academically and felt like it would be a wasted education if I went on to pursue professional golf."

At least until she found herself taking in a cloudless sky at work, something to be prized in the Seattle area. "I vividly remember sitting in a cubicle looking out these windows that were, like halfway up so that all you could see was sky ... blue sky," Mackenzie said. "I remember thinking, 'I wish I was on the golf course right now,' and that's when I realized what I needed to do. That's when I told myself, 'That's where I want to be. That's where I need to be if I want to be happy.' I realized that it is OK to do what you want and not maybe what you think you should be doing. Life is too short not to be doing something you like."

Yesterday, five months after turning pro, not even the menacing dive of a large bee as Mackenzie was hitting her tee shot on the 16th hole — eventually resulting in her only bogey — or the pressure of suddenly seeing her name atop the leaderboard could make her think otherwise.

Many of her college classmates are working at places like Boeing, Safeco and Microsoft. Mackenzie said she stays in contact with them. But she doesn't find herself envying them.

Especially on days like yesterday when the sun is shining and the putts are dropping.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.