Parker McLachlin might win this Sony Open in Hawai'i and he might not, but no one in the PGA Tour's first full-field event — and maybe no one on this planet — will play Waialae Country Club the way Hawai'i's 1996 state high school champion can.

McLachlin was never a member, but took his first group lesson at Waialae when he was 8 and eventually worked at the course for minimum wage. Jobs ranged from cleaning toilets to taking out trash. The $6.50 an hour salary was all but insignificant to McLachlin, whose primary payment was playing time.

As an employee, he could play the rare course that has hosted a tour event since 1965. He could also practice as long as the light would let him. Then he would practice more, waiting for his parents — former high school athletic directors Chris and Beth McLachlin — to pick him up.

"A lot of times I'd finish work at Waialae and be on the practice green seeing myself making putts to win the Sony Open, into the dark," McLachlin recalled. "They only had one light so I had to stay on one hole."

McLachlin mastered the putting part. That phase of the game has always been his foundation. He ranked 34th on tour last year.

Cleaning the toilets ... maybe not so much. "He doesn't do it at home," wife Kristy volunteered. "I've teased him about that."

McLachlin's fifth Sony Open, at the course that helped him go "from the outhouse to the penthouse," is the stuff of dreams that go back nearly two decades. When he was 12, Parker told his father he would buy him a car when he won his first PGA Tour event. Chris's 1984 Toyota Tercel bit the dust soon after his son captured the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open last summer.

He and Kristy had sensed the win a week earlier. Parker planned to take the Reno week off, but in Canada he found something that sent him to Nevada while his wife stayed home in Scottsdale, Ariz., as originally planned. Parker shot 62 Friday to seize control and when they talked on the phone that night both decided Kristy would stay home.

"I really had confidence he would win before he left," Kristy recalled. "There was something different about his attitude, the things he was saying. When he left, I just said go do it. When it started becoming reality, that this could be the week where he won, he just had a focus about him that everything he did was so right on.

"If I came that would change, whether we like it or not. I didn't need be there with him for him to know I was there for him. We made that decision together, to keep doing what you're doing and we're going to win."

When it happened — McLachlin won by seven strokes on a day when his vaunted short game salvaged five hours of missed fairways and greens — Kristy cried tears of joy alone in their home, watching friends and family celebrate with him.

"It was a really nice moment for me because everything kind of came together," she recalled. "All the hard work we'd both put in. I didn't need to be with everybody, be with him. It was OK. I just told him he had to do it again and I'd be with him then."

Where Parker would really, truly like to do it again is here, in Hawai'i, on the home course where his dream began, with the family and friends who shaped his success, and life.

"Playing at Sony for me is just a surreal experience," McLachlin said. "I've played Waialae so many times I feel like I've just grown up there. To play there, in a tournament I've watched so many years, it just doesn't get any better than that.

"With all the hometown fans and craziness that goes along with that week, and the responsibilities I've got, it's kind of therapeutic to be between the ropes Thursday to Sunday. I'm really looking forward to it."

NO LONGER A 'SHRIMP'

McLachlin is much different from the scrawny "shrimp" who took those junior lessons from former head pro Greg Nichols, then worked his way around Waialae to reach the planet's premier tour.

He caddied for 1987 U.S. Open champion Scott Simpson at the 1993 Hawaiian Open; three years ago Simpson, a family friend, caddied for him at Sony. McLachlin won the Junior America's Cup in in Canada in 1996, soon after capturing the state high school championship. He had a successful collegiate career at UCLA and progressed through the Hooters, Tight Lies, Gateway and Spanos mini-tours to qualify for the Nationwide Tour — a cut below the PGA Tour — in 2006.

The next two years he successfully navigated Qualifying School, probably the six toughest golf rounds anyone will ever play, to reach the big time. Last year, with the win and $1.3 million in earnings, he began to truly feel like he belonged as he surged into the top 200 in the World Golf Ranking.

At 6 foot 1, the three-time state volleyball champion from Punahou is no longer a "shrimp" — among other things. McLachlin's sponsors now include Waikoloa Resort, Audi of Hawai'i, Destination Cellars and Oakley. The guy who used to wait until after 7 p.m. to call because he couldn't afford more minutes on his cell phone now works with an entourage of coaches and invests $200,000 a year in his career.

"Our attitude from the beginning," Kristy said, "has been do what you need to do to perform the best you can — to make it work."

Parker still works into the darkness. His new swing coach is Sean Foley. McLachlin expects to see him at some 18 events this year, and is upbeat about the work they have been doing and how it will affect his ball striking and greens in regulation.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

But, more than anything, the changes in McLachlin over the years are mind over matter. He is now a working man playing on golf's grandest stage.

"I have a better understanding of who I am," Parker said. "A better understanding of my golf game."

"He is," Kristy said simply, "more mature."

Still, coming home, particularly to Waialae, never fails to make him giddy. Three of his best golf memories are: The moment his caddie told him, as he headed up to the final hole of his first Q-School, to "enjoy the walk, you've got it;" that wondrous day in Reno last August, and; playing with Shigeki Maruyama in one of the final groups at last year's Sony, where he finished 10th.

"It was pretty cool," McLachlin recalled. "In the Japanese community Shigeki is such a hero and a rock star. I felt like our group had about as many watching as the lead group. It was a pretty fun atmosphere to be part of and I ended up playing pretty well Sunday."

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

He practically knows every blade of grass on the golf course, not that it always helps in a game as goofy as golf. McLachlin has played Waialae maybe 500 times, and practiced on it for more hours than he can calculate.

He characterizes Sony's first hole — a par-5 that was morphed into a par-4 to put some teeth in Waialae — the toughest hole on tour because it is the first hole of the year, and its narrow fairways and guarded green invite disaster.

He calls Waialae's greens the best he plays all year, in part because "I grew up on them, and I love that type of Bermuda grass and it's always manicured just right. It just feels like sleeping in your own bed again, a warm, comforting feeling."

His favorite holes are the 10th, because of how different it can play based on the wind, the 17th — "a great-looking hole" he calls one of the better par-3s on tour — and No. 7, another par-3 that is "one of the more cool shots because the bunkers are placed so well and you are hitting iron shots up against the mountains."

More than anything, his history with the golf course helps him "know where to miss it."

"There's spots on the golf course you can't be," McLachlin said. "You can't be left on No. 14, can't be right on No. 13, can't be left on No. 15, can't be left on No. 16. I think that me having played there so much, that's what I've learned over the years. I know not to be there. It doesn't help me make birdies, but it helps me make a lot less bogeys."

Honestly, there is little he does not like about Waialae, from the people like Nichols who dared him to dream all the way ... well, to the last putt.

"To have a PGA Tour-caliber golf course to practice on on a daily basis was obviously a huge advantage for me," McLachlin said. "You couldn't just go around Waialae and shoot a 62 or 63 and it would be really easy. I think my best score at Waialae was 66 when it was 6-under par. It's one of those courses that always challenges you. It really, really tests your game and brings out your weaknesses. It's good for me to have a course like that to hone my game."

And grow up, into the fourth guy from Hawai'i — after Ted Makalena, David Ishii and Dean Wilson — to win on the PGA Tour. He might not win this week, but no one is happier and more grateful to be inside the ropes at Waialae than Parker McLachlin.