The subject this week is ... focus.

The word was pounded into me all last week by my golfing buddy, Riley Wallace, the former University of Hawai'i men's basketball coach.

"You weren't focused enough," Wallace told me as he stuffed his wallet with some of my money after three days of golf on Maui. "You've got to be focused. I was focused."

It was our annual summer golf fling on the Valley Island with some buddies, including basketball booster Ron Kurihara and members of the Boyd Gaming Group from Las Vegas.

But, this time, the annual outing had a touch of nostalgia because Wallace no longer is head coach of the Rainbows after 20 years. And he left yesterday with his wife, Joan, for the home they built in the Red Rock area in Summerlin, Nev.

But they'll keep their close ties to Hawai'i. They sold their Hawai'i Kai home and bought a condo in Waikiki. There are too many memories here to forget this place, Wallace said.

He plans on returning in August to help in fund-raising for the UH basketball scholarship endowment program he started.

And the summer golf outings on Maui will continue, he said. "We need to keep doing it to stay young," Wallace told me.

Though a deal still hasn't been finalized, he is expected to be involved with the Boyd Group, one of the UH athletic department's major sponsors because it wants to continue its strong ties with local residents, who make up the majority of the clientele at their downtown Las Vegas casinos.

And will Wallace be back into coaching at New Mexico State, one of UH's Western Athletic Conference rivals?

Wallace said he applied for the opening vacated by Reggie Theus, who went to the NBA's Sacramento Kings.

He told Aggie officials he'd be interested in the job if they couldn't come up with someone in a long-term arrangement.

"I'd do it for a couple of years until they do," he said.

He's not holding his breath, though. It's not something he's focusing on.

SUMMER FUN

HAWAI'I YOUNGSTERS HAVE FULL SCHEDULE

Speaking of focus, that's what Michelle Wie is doing on her golf game starting today in the U.S. Women's Open at the Pine Needles Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C.

And all attention will be focused on the 17-year-old golf prodigy, who's having her woes this summer. Here's hoping Wie will continue to command that attention through the weekend as she has done in her previous four appearances in that major championship.

Her game has gotten to the point where it's not, "Just win, baby," anymore. Rather, it's just break par, just make the cut.

Considering all her previous accomplishments, 2007 has been a bummer so far.

But not for many of the other talented young female golfers from Hawai'i.

It is worth noting that seven of the 64 players who qualified for match play in the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links championship in Lexington, Ky., last week came from the Aloha State.

Only Stephanie Kono, an incoming Punahou School senior, made it as far as the quarterfinals, losing to eventual champion Mina Harigae, but it's a remarkable player-ratio for any state, let alone one with as small a population as Hawai'i.

Even more eye-opening is the latest Golfweek/Titleist rankings for junior girls. Three players with Hawai'i ties are in the top 10 — Kimberly Kim (No. 3), Kono (No. 6) and Ayaka Kaneko (No. 8). Call them the Triple-K Club.

Kaneko, who'll be a senior ar Sacred Hearts, won the American Junior Golf Association Bluegrass Junior, also in Kentucky, by five strokes the week of the WAPL.

Kim, who now resides in Arizona, joins Wie in this week's U.S. Women's Open, a perk for winning the U.S. Women's Amateur last year.

Kono and Kaneko, who failed to survive the Women's Open sectional qualifying, will join Kim in the U.S. Girls' Junior at the Tacoma Country Club in Lakewood, Wash., July 23 to 28.

Kaneko and Kim will be playing in two major AJGA events — the Rolex Tournament of Champions in Columbus, Ohio, and the McDonald's Betsy Rawls Girls Championships in Malvern, Pa. — before then.

You can bet they'll be focused.