Steady Komoto captures women’s match play title

With the will — to say nothing of the talent — of an older and wiser golfer, Kacie Komoto officially declared she was ready for collegiate golf Friday.

The Punahou graduate added the Hawaii State Women’s Match Play Championship to her packed resume, beating defending champion Cassy Isagawa 2 and 1 at Oahu Country Club.

Komoto won the state stroke-play tournament four years ago. She captured the state high school championship last year.

Friday, on her home course, she outplayed the outrageously talented Isagawa in the second of Hawaii’s three women’s majors.

"This is a reassurance that I’m heading on the right path," said Komoto, who will play for Northwestern this fall. "I just need to stick to what I’ve been doing and keep improving so that in college I can take it a step further."

It might not have been so much what Komoto accomplished, but how she accomplished it.

Isagawa, a second-team All-American who starts her junior year at Oregon soon, played close to her intimidating best. She started birdie-eagle and played the first five holes in 4 under par.

She was only 2 up at that point and would win just one more hole.

Komoto caught Isagawa as they made the turn. She took her first lead when she almost dunked her tee shot on the par-3 11th — "that gave me some momentum" — and never let Isagawa back in.

That speaks volumes, because the Baldwin graduate never backs off. She won the 2010 high school championship to kick-start a year that saw her claim the PGA Junior Championship, lead Hawaii to the Girls America’s Cup title and play in Scotland on the Junior Ryder Cup team.

Isagawa holds the top two scoring averages in Ducks history and is coming off a record-setting performance at the British Columbia Women’s Amateur, which she won by obliterating the course record — three times.

She just kept coming Friday, but the 18-year-old Komoto played 17 holes in a bogey-free 5 under par.

"Kinda hard to beat someone who doesn’t make any bogeys," Isagawa said, shrugging. "It really pushes you to try and make all the birdies you can, and I wasn’t able to execute that toward the end. But we both played great.

"Kacie is always going to be a consistent player, no matter what. Nothing higher than maybe 74 or 75, that’s going to be her worst score."

Komoto’s calm consistency is by design, particularly in match play.

"My dad always tells me if they are going to win the hole you want to make them win with birdie, so keep parring and the birdies will come," said Komoto, whose father, Gary, caddied. "I tried to do that — just making pars and not making many mistakes. I don’t want to be a player that can shoot a 67 to an 85. I want to be consistent and reliable."

Spoken like a team player. She won three state team championships at Punahou, to go with her individual title. She hopes for more at Northwestern.

Isagawa was 3 under for the day in a match so close putt lengths needed to be measured on six holes. Both her bogeys cost her holes. She was two down after the last one, at the 14th, but immediately birdied the next hole.

A few minutes later, Komoto drilled a 20-foot birdie putt into the heart of the 16th hole.

"The whole week I never really made any long putts," Komoto said. "That was a long putt. A little hard, but it went in."

A simple two-putt par at the 17th finally closed out Isagawa.

"Cassy has definitely got a lot of fire, got a lot of heart," Komoto said. "When she was down she didn’t back off. She came back and kept fighting and fought with birdies, like 15. She doesn’t give up. That’s so important, the mental part of golf."

In that area especially, Komoto — the only semifinalist not in college or in possession of a match-play title — was brilliant. It bodes well for Northwestern.