What the Aloha Section PGA’s Ho‘olaulea Awards Banquet might do best each year is simply remind us to remember. It celebrates people who are successful now in golf, but we can never celebrate them without remembering those who came before.
Brenda Rego will become the 72nd member of the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame at the ninth annual Ho‘olaulea, Feb. 11 at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.
You can’t mention her without remembering her remarkable golfing family and the golfers she grew up with. Rego played with Althea Tome, Debbie Spencer and Jackie and Wendell Tom, whose father started junior golf.
Hall of Famers Guinea Kop and Jackie Pung pushed Rego’s game to the next level, beyond a slew of local victories to success in college and a short LPGA career. Rego also teed it up here with Marga Stubblefield, Althea Tome, Bev Kim and Lori Castillo — from yet another amazing golf family.
All are Hall of Famers.
“Growing up in high school Bev and I used to golf all the time,” Rego recalls. “She was my high school teacher and she was playing a lot of golf. She was good and competitive. She’s still that way.”
Hal Okita might not be quite as competitive and he is not in the Hall of Fame, but he will receive the Aloha Section’s Ho‘okuleana Lifetime Achievement Award for the width of his work in the game after retiring from the Army as a colonel.
He first played in college with his Dayton baseball teammates, and still can’t believe how difficult it is to hit a ball that’s not moving. He became “smitten” with golf just before leaving the Army.
Okita was General Manager of the Army Golf Association, Mid-Pacific Country Club and Royal Kunia and Executive Director of the Hawaii State Golf Association, which he helped found, and Aloha Section PGA.
He currently sits on the HSGA board and serves as a rules official, something he was encouraged to pursue in 34 years ago when the Army Open had a field of 525 pros and amateurs, and could only muster two volunteers to help with rules.
“I did not know what a challenge lay ahead,” Okita says, “nor the fun I would get from doing rules.”
He still has a soft spot in his heart for the thousands of volunteers who keep golf going here. His golf lineage actually dates back to Saint Louis School, where Ted Makalena — inducted into the Hall’s inaugural class in 1988 — was three years younger and became a close friend.
Okita also followed some of the military’s best players here — John Kalinka, Walter Morgan, Nick Mason, Orville Moody and Amie Amizich. He worked with seven PGA pros at Schofield.
The oldest was Walter Nagorski, who turned pro at 16, moved here from Michigan during WW II and never left. Nagorski served 42 years at Ft. Shafter — now Walter Nagorski — Golf Course and was inducted into the Hall in 1999.
“Walt taught me a lot about golf in Hawaii, about the PGA, about helping to get non-Caucasians accepted in the PGA, about the creation of the Aloha Section,” Okita recalls. “His pride in being a golf professional was evident in every breath he took.”
Nagorski encouraged Okita to find a way to grow the game beyond the military. Okita became involved with Bob Tom and junior golf, helped form the HSGA with Richard Ho, John Roberts, Norm Crowell and Rea Commerford, and got involved in GHIN handicapping and course rating beyond his work with rules.
The HSGA was an offshoot of Hawaii Public Links and that introduced Okita to golfers such as Casey Watabu, Guy Yamamoto, Charles and Randy Barenaba, Allan Yamamoto, David Ishii, Dean Wilson, Dean Prince, Wendell and Brandan Kop, Art Fujita, Kevin Hayashi and Hung Soo Ahn.
Those names are part of his golf history, just as so many are part of Rego’s. She has added to her Hawaii golf resume with a post-playing career at courses and in pro shops, and with juniors.
She is now head pro at Wailea Blue, after becoming Hawaii’s first female Class A PGA professional.
It all started with a family that grew up in Kunia, where Brenda and brothers Art, Darrell and Clyde built a sand trap and putting green in their backyard and hit golf balls they found over the gulch into the pineapple fields.
“During the summer, my father would drop us off at the course in the morning and we would play 36 holes a day, walking,” Brenda recalled. “We’d play and go look for balls that we’d sell for 10 cents to buy snacks. The four of us were very competitive. Growing up with brothers, you learn to compete harder and just work harder at everything.”
Her golf memories, like Okita’s, remain vivid. Much like the Hawaii golfers that will never be forgotten.
To reserve a space at this year’s Ho‘olaulea banquet, contact the Aloha Section PGA (593-2230 or aloha411@pgahq.com).
2017 Ho‘olaulea Award Winners
Aloha Section PGA
>> Player of the Year: Kevin Hayashi
>> Senior Player: Kevin Hayashi
>> Golf Professional: Tom Sursely
>> Assistant Pro: Robert Respicio
>> President’s Plaque: David Havens
>> Bill Strausbaugh Award: Travis Joerger
>> Horton Smith Award: Claude Brousseau
>> Junior Golf Leader: Kevin Shimomura
>> Teacher of the Year: Eddie Lee
>> Merchandiser (Private): Patrick Clary
>> Merchandiser (Resort): Marcus Judge
>> Sales Representative: Keith Kodani
>> Distinguished Service Award: Michael Kawaharada
>> Ho’okuleana Lifetime Achievement Award: Hal Okita
Hawaii State Golf Association
>> Amateur Player of the Year: Tyler Ota
>> Senior Amateur Player: Carl Ho
>> Volunteer of the Year: Jay Hinazumi
Hawaii State Women’s Golf Association
>> Player of the Year: Jeannie Pak
>> Volunteer: Gwen Omori
Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
>> Lifetime Achievement Award: Short Honma
>> Superintendent of the Year: Mike Honma
Hawaii State Junior Golf Association
Players of the Year
>> 15-18: Allysha Mae Mateo and Zackary Kaneshiro
>> 13-14: Lana Calibuso-Kwee and Davis Lee
>> 11-12: Rachael Wang and Marshall Kim Jr.
>> 7-10: Raya Nakao and Taiki Marsh
>> Dr. Ho Spirit of the Game Awards: Lacey Uchida and Noah Koshi
