It took a long time for golfer Nicole Sakamoto to learn how to win and even longer for her to win at home. After capturing last week’s Jennie K. Invitational, she is among an elite group of women who have won all three Hawaii majors.
Days after graduating from James Madison, Sakamoto became the 11th woman to win the Hawaii State Stroke and Match Play championships and Jennie K. The list includes Hawaii Golf Hall of Famers Joan Damon, Edna Lee Jackola and Bev Kim, who were winning in the 1950s and ’60s.
Anna Umemura holds the distinction of being the only one to win the triple crown in the same year (1997).
Sakamoto has a shot at it, in her final summer as an amateur. She plans to turn pro within the year, but first she will go for a three-peat at in the Stroke Play and Match Play tournaments.
The last time she teed it up in Hawaii and did notwin was the 2009 Jennie K. But until she held off 12-year-old Mariel Galdiano in the 2010 Stroke Play, Sakamoto had never won at home. That was the summer after the Kalani graduate won two collegiate titles and played her way into the NCAA tournament as an individual.
Before that, there had been five top-five finishes at Jennie K. and Stroke Play and a loss to Cyd Okino in the 2008 Match Play final.
Something has clicked for the girl who has worked with Lance Suzuki in Casey Nakama’s Junior Development Program since Michelle Wie was still putting around Olomana.
Sakamoto and Stephanie Kono, now an LPGA rookie, are the only golfers to defend a Stroke Play Championship in the past 25 years. That twosome, along with Jan Shiroma, TV broadcaster Marlene Floyd and Damon are the only women who have done it since the Stroke Play started 50 years ago.
Damon is the only one to three-peat, winning Stroke Play in 1963, ’64 and — after the event took a four-year hiatus — 1969, ’70 and ’71.
Sakamoto is also among six women who have defended Match Play titles in the event’s current form, which began in 1971. That group includes former and current Rainbow Wahine coaches Bobbi Kokx and Lori Castillo.
From 1924 to ’64, the Match Play tournament was known as the Hawaiian Women’s Amateur. Hawaii Golf Hall of Famers Codie Austin Cooke, Jackie Liwai Pung, Ramona Petrie McGuire, Edna Lee Jackola and Damon combined to win 20 titles.
