After conquering banking world, Lily Yao turned to golf

Hard to say if Lily Yao found golf or it found her. At 74, it doesn’t matter. What she knows is she started golfing when she was 50 and it has changed her life.

“Golf is the hardest sport I have ever played in my life and I love it,” says Yao. “I love it because it’s hard, it’s more challenging. That’s my personality too — the harder it gets, I try harder.”

A quick look at her lengthy resume provides immense evidence.

While living in Taiwan as a teenager, the Shanghai native decided she wanted to be a flight attendant. So she learned how to swim, and mastered English and Japanese, to seize one of the coveted openings.

She and James “Jimmy” Yao married in 1966 and settled in Hawaii a few years later. Lily took a job as a teller at Pioneer Federal and earned a Business Administration degree at UH over eight years of evening classes, applying what she learned at night each day at work.

She would eventually become president and CEO of Pioneer Federal and serve on the Board of Regents at the University of Hawaii for eight years, getting elected chair twice. When Pioneer merged with First Hawaiian Bank, she became FHB’s first female vice chairman.

She was also the first woman to be president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, in the midst of a vast amount of community involvement that included working for financial industry boards and as a member of the Federal Reserve Board’s consumer advisory council.

But golf became her primary passion.

She recalls walking along the beach at Pebble Beach, Calif., at one of her first First Hawaiian board of director meetings. Most of her colleagues golfed nearby on one of the world’s most spectacular courses.

That helped convince her that, at 50, she needed to play golf for her professional life. Later, it became much more personal.

“To me, golf is not only a sport, it is a social tool to enlarge business and friendship circles,” Yao said when she retired in 2003. “It can help you to be self-motivated, self-disciplined, emotionally self-controlled, and it teaches you to be a team player.

“Overall, you become a better human being for yourself, for the community, for business and our state.”

She took the game to heart, started taking lessons and hitting “really lots of balls.”

“First Hawaiian Bank had a lot of people who were golfers and they were good ones,” Yao recalls. “I didn’t want to look stupid.”

No chance, due to her personality and a chance meeting with Bev Kim, a member of the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame.

Kim refined and embellished Yao’s game, with a little help from her new friend: To this day, Yao still hits “really lots of balls,” golfs two or three times a week and works out twice — for two hours — at the Y.

“I like the Y because on their equipment they have the TVs,” Yao says, “so I can put the TV on and watch the golf.”

Her first score was 125 at Leilehua. In 1999, she won the State Senior Women’s Championship. By 2005, her handicap was 5. Her low round is 74 and she can still crush the ball as she closes in on the age of 75.

“That’s sheer determination,” Kim says of Yao’s distance.

And sheer joy.

“I’ve been telling Bev the best thing I ever did for myself is to pick up golf,” Yao says. “So after I retired I could let all the past glory — the business success and all that and let it go, just like that. I don’t miss it. I can concentrate on what I want to do.”

It is all part of Yao’s plan. Her “objectives” when she retired were to be a better golfer, financially independent and healthy. Mission accomplished.

Astonishingly, she had no clue about the game before she turned 50. She credits Kim — “my personal coach” — for getting golf to capture her imagination, to say nothing of giving her great golf tips.

About the same time this was happening, Michelle Wie was capturing the imagination of the golf world. Yao noticed and was inspired to start the Hawaii State Women’s Golf Foundation in 2002.

“The main reason was Michelle, because she was so popular and her game was so impressive,” Yao recalls. “That’s why I wanted to establish the foundation, to help the junior girls that we had — the talent — to advance.”

She funded the foundation by raising $200,000 at her retirement dinner in 2003. It has now given out nearly 150 stipends and scholarships, for golfers to travel to national events and help pay for college.

A few of the names who have benefited are Wie, Stephanie Kono, Britney Choy, Mari Chun, Cyd Okino, Nicole Sakamoto, Kristina Merkle, Allisen Corpuz, Anna Jang, Kaci Komoto, Marissa Chow, Mariel Galdiano and Rose Huang. All have had huge success in college, with some going far beyond.

The past few years, the foundation has also given gifts to all who play Hawaii State Women’s Golf Association tournaments.

Ideally, golf can help keep them healthy and happy — like Yao.

“The best decision of my life,” she says simply, “was starting golf.”