Having Tadd and Parker in the field is a good thing

Issuing Tadd Fujikawa and Parker McLachlin backstage passes to this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii brought smiles to many faces throughout the island chain.

You can imagine how each felt when hearing the news that he would be a part of the first full-field event on the PGA Tour without having to look beyond their own back yards. At times, course knowledge can be a dangerous thing. If you rely on it too much, it can let you down like a three-putt bogey.

But both are comfortable here. Both have wonderful back stories straight off a Hollywood lot. Parker, his young days spent at Waialae, dreaming of holding the trophy out at the 18th green. Tadd, overcoming so much personal strife, showing us there’s no golf bag he can’t carry.

It’s important for an event like Sony to provide a proving ground for capable local talent. That’s why sponsor’s exemptions and certain exceptions were created — to give a local boy a chance to make good, and in turn, bring a lot of folks to the course.

Who can forget what Tadd did that late Friday evening in 2007 when he sank that eagle putt at the 18th hole? Or that Saturday afternoon in 2009 when he tickled the top of the leaderboard with a blistering 62. People who didn’t even know where Waialae was, who hadn’t attended a professional golf event in their lives, lined the first fairway the next day to watch the little engine that could.

Past Sony Open champ David Toms and fellow pro Harrison Frazar were so moved by the roars that Tadd’s 62 inspired, both agreed: This is what it’s all about.

And even though Tadd didn’t win either year, he still stole the show in 2007 from eventual champion Paul Goydos, a journeyman who hadn’t held that many trophies aloft himself, but graciously stepped aside and applauded the 16-year-old’s run for the lei.

Fujikawa would like nothing better than to capture another bolt in a bottle to jump-start a career that seems stuck in neutral.

McLachlin’s on the same side of the green. Despite securing a PGA Tour win in Reno in 2008, and even having Tiger Woods’ swing coach on his bag, the UCLA graduate has struggled to get it done; kind of like Barack Obama, a president Parker once guarded in a pickup game when life was so much better for both.

That’s part of making a living between the ropes. Professional golfers know this all too well. But even so, wouldn’t it be nice for the Punahou product to suddenly find himself, on oh-so-familiar fairways and greens?

As Woody Allen once said — after dragging Marshall McLuhan from behind a movie poster to tell a pompous professor he didn’t know anything about his work — "If life were only like this."

Unfortunately, it’s just as likely both will miss the cut. That’s the harsh reality in a game where confidence separates those who do from those who don’t. Regardless of what happens, Sony Open officials did the right thing. They provided the opportunity for both and still gave deserving professionals from Japan a chance as well. It’s not often you can take a delicate situation such as this one and not mangle it with uninformed choices. And by the way, let’s all send John Daly a thank-you card for his WD.

Now, it’s up to both to be worthy of Sony’s generosity. And be around for the weekend to produce what folks around here call "a chicken-skin moment." A fluffy lie? Perhaps, but one each can handle with the proper club and swing.

Reach Paul Arnett at parnett@staradvertiser.com.