Erin Long captured the Hawai'i State Women's Golf Association Match Play Championship yesterday on a rainy morning that was a microcosm of her golf career.

She began with a bang against a shell-shocked Katie Sisler, lost her nerve and temper in a mid-match walkabout, then rallied with a display of shotmaking so surprising and joyful she ultimately could not stop grinning.

Long, who gave up the game for nearly three years, returned with a vengeance this week. In her first tournament since the 2004 Western Athletic Conference Championship, she beat Sisler 3 and 2 to capture the second women's major of the year.

Neither player had entered this event before. Long had no plans of entering this year, but was convinced by the tournament director to help fill pukas in the bracket.

The 24-year-old grew up in Napa, Calif., and played for Nevada in college, before burning out on the game. She moved to Hawai'i last August for a management job with P.F. Chang's and rediscovered her passion for golf when she picked up a second job at Oahu Country Club, site of the match play.

This was her final amateur event. She is now back in the golf business and will take her Playing Ability Test this month in hopes of earning a living as a teaching pro. If she can teach the way she played this week, life will be good.

"I'm going to try, for the rest of my life," Long said. "I've been working on my game for a long time. It takes practice. People think you can take lessons and just go out on the course, but it takes practice by yourself, too. That's the key thing for anybody.

"I am thrilled, so excited. ... It's a good feeling to come out here and know I can put my mind to something and still do it. This is what makes me happy. I'm walking down the fairways with a smile on my face. I'm so glad I had the opportunity."

For the second straight match, Long eagled the first hole, drilling an 18-footer. Sisler three-putted the next hole to go 2-down, then watched incredulously as Long drained a fast-moving 35-footer for birdie to go 3-up.

Long looked at Sisler, grinned almost in apology and shook her head, then stuck her approach shot two feet from the flag at No. 5 to go 4-up.

"She made three birdies in the first five holes so I knew I had a lot of work to do," Sisler said. "But I really knew that eventually she'd have to cool down. You can't make those all around. I knew I just had to stay focused and I'd get a few holes back. I didn't expect to get that many back so soon though."

Sisler, with a game so precise and rhythmic it is shocking to see her make a bad swing, burst Long's bubble — as she had done to opponents all week. The recent Punahou graduate erased her entire deficit before the match made the turn, birdieing the sixth and seventh from close range and getting concessions from Long on the other two.

When Long air-mailed her pitch over the ninth green to the vicinity of the 10th tee, she gave Sisler the hole, snatched the offending ball and walked directly to the tee box. You could practically see imaginary steam coming out of her ears and merging with the Nu'uanu mist.

"I lost it," Long said. "She made those two birdies in a row at six and seven and it got me in the gut a little bit. I started thinking, 'You were 4-up, you don't want to lose this,' instead of playing my game. The mental aspect got to me a little bit."

Then, with the wisdom of someone who had been there and done that before, she composed herself and proceeded to grab the match by the throat with some smash-mouth golf.

"I took a couple breaths," Long recalled. "I knew it (10) was a drive-able hole for me and I got up and hit my driver and knocked it on. That was a good start."

Her blast up the slope and into the stiff breeze stopped some 240 yards away, on the 10th green for an easy two-putt birdie. Long would never trail again.

She sank a six-footer for par to halve the next hole, took advantage of a rare miss by Sisler to win the 12th, then sank a six-footer for birdie to go 3-up. She clinched with par on the 16th, when Sisler finally ran out of miracles with her metronome swing and savvy short game.

"The 12th was a really big hole," Sisler said. "Only one down with seven holes to play is not that bad, but I just hit a really bad drive. I wasn't set up well and made a bad swing, had to punch out (of the water hazard). She could have won that with bogey. There were still six holes. I told myself 'You can do it,' but then she hit the green (in two) and won (the par-5) 13th."

Ultimately, Long's power was the difference — she won four of the five par-5's — with her long birdie putts and mid-range par saves the clinchers yesterday. Sisler, who starts at UC Davis in September, had a memorable senior season with a third at the state high school championship, an ILH individual title, and an eye-opening 62 early in the season. But in yesterday's final, she simply couldn't match Long's length, or penchant for birdies.

"If I could have one part of her game it would be her approaches and chipping," Sisler said. "To convert so many birdies ... she made three on the front and three on the back — six birdies in 16 holes. I wish I could do that."

There will be many more chances. Long sees college conditioning transforming the "tiny" (5 foot 2, 105 pounds) Sisler into a lean, mean birdie machine. She already has the persistence.

"She held onto it today," Long said. "Being 4-down, that's tough, and she never faltered. She came back fighting, knew she had to make some putts and she did it."

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.