Mark Rolfing finds himself at the Interlachen Country Club in Minnesota for the U.S. Women's Open this week, which is a long way from the cart barn at Kapalua as career dreams fly.

Rolfing will serve as the television host for NBC's coverage of this LPGA major, another big step for the man who has become the voice of — and for — Hawai'i golf.

To be sure, Michelle Wie is better known and Dean Wilson and Parker McLachlin have better games, but the 59-year-old Rolfing is the man people in a wide array of places have come to turn to for inside information on golf. Tourism officials rely on his advice concerning tournaments. Networks and fans value his insight and tell-it-straight style.

When Tiger Woods announced he was limping to the sidelines for surgery, Rolfing's cellphone lit up as if he was appointed Woods' spokesman for all the instant expertise he was asked to dispense. Media outlets far and wide speed-dialed him in.

But it isn't just the World of Woods where Rolfing is in his element. Whether the subject is Wie or any number of other topics, Rolfing is a go-to source through his years of working for ESPN, The Golf Channel, NBC, Golf Hawai'i and elsewhere.

None of which was even in the imagination when he hopped a flight to Hawai'i in 1975 looking for a break from an ankle that throbbed and a golf career that had seen its own pains.

"I didn't have a (PGA Tour) card, I played 37 events in 1975, made $40,000 and that just didn't seem to add up," Rolfing recalls. He was headed to Honolulu when a flight attendant convinced him to check out Maui. "I fell in love with the place immediately and started looking for a job," Rolfing said.

A political science degree from DePauw University (where he was Dan Quayle's roommate and golf teammate) and several years of knocking around the pro golf circuits qualified him for a job cleaning carts.

In time, Rolfing graduated to the pro shop, and marketing and director of golf operations at Kapalua, where he helped start a tournament, the Kapalua International. What the job lacked in money it made up for in perks, which included playing golf with President Gerald Ford and being able to give himself a sponsor's exemption into the Kapalua International.

The last one was especially fortuitous in that an interview after a good round got him on TV with Vin Scully and Lee Trevino in 1985. When there was a 15-minute delay in play due to a ruling on Peter Jacobsen's shot, Rolfing was able to weigh in with the kind of insight and expertise that got him noticed by network executives.

"I've probably done the whole thing backwards," Rolfing laughs. "Usually, you have to be a star to get into the broadcast booth and, then, you can retire in Hawai'i."

Backward or forward, he's gotten the star part right.

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