Seniors got talent

Now that Mark Wiebe and his star-studded Champions Tour supporting cast from last week’s Pacific Links Hawai‘i Championship are gone, let’s talk about some seriously senior golfers.

Last Monday was the 35th annual Hawaii State Women’s Golf Association Senior Championship.

Jade Merkle fired a 1-over-par 73 at Leilehua to win the overall low-gross title, a year after losing a tiebreaker. She might be better known in golf circles as mother of four-time Jennie K. champion Kristina Merkle, or wife of Leilehua head pro Lou Merkle, but clearly Jade’s got game.

Debra Anne Murobayashi, a 31-handicapper, took low-net honors with 63. Both came out of D Flight, populated by those between the ages of 50-62.

In other words, the kids.

Championship Flight was made up of 11 golfers in their 80s and Elaine Lee and Flo Miyasaki. Both turned 90 a few months ago, and never missed a beat on their busy golf calendars. They got a standing ovation when they were introduced at the awards banquet.

Miyasaki acknowledged it with this: "And we’re going to keep on going,"

Miyasaki, who plays two or three rounds a week, threw a 96 at the flight and finished second low net, just behind Wanda Giden. Playing partner Annette Kono, only 86, beat Miyasaki by one and lost a tiebreaker with Winifred Jones for low gross in the flight.

Kono’s son Curtis won the 1987 Manoa Cup and now tests —and sometimes tortures — those who try to claim it in his position as Oahu Country Club’s course superintendent. Annette, who has had two knee replacements and was still skiing at 70, won the senior tournament in 1985.

The other 80-something in their group was Betty Roth, who turned 89 this week. When she started golfing, she would trade work for lessons with Walter Nagorski at Fort Shafter Golf Course, now called Walter Nagorski Golf Course. She has been playing at Kaneohe Klipper since 1959, and helping the University of Hawaii with its Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational at the course the past 28 years.

The threesome takes the U.S. Golf Association’s new speed-up-the-game slogan "While We are Young" seriously — figuratively and faithfully, if not literally.

Honors — on the tee, in the fairway or on the green — are for "whippersnappers," as Kono calls anyone under 85.

So is marking any putt within four feet of the hole. Miyasaki, Roth and Kono knock those suckers in faster than playing partners can say "Don’t worry, you are not on my line."

They find creative shortcuts with their golf carts, saving as many precious steps as possible. At the senior tournament, they waited on the groups ahead on almost half the holes.

They may be good, but they are also fast and don’t have time to waste.

"Flo, hold your horses," Kono told Miyasaki when she was about to putt while others got to the green.

"Forget telling me what to do," Miyasaki shot back, with a huge grin and not an ounce of rancor, just before she launched her putt.

Another conversation started out "back in the day." Kono quickly cut it off. "Start another day," she said with a smile.

Speed might be their golf style of choice, but start another day is their mantra. In their kind, calm and inspiring lives, every day is a good day, and they are wise enough to count the start of each one as a blessing. Golf is just a bonus that they take very seriously.

They have their struggles — "A lot of our golfers," Kono whispers, glancing at her competitors, "they cannot hear" — but any struggle in golf can be struck down by the perfect shot with the perfect club.

For these three, that has happened thousands of times. Their handicaps range from 24 to 27, in a sport where the majority of the players never break 100 — shots, not years.

The winner of A Flight (ages 74-79) was Grace Wilson, who shot 88. Her son Dean won the Hawaii State Open last year, and about $9 million on the PGA Tour.

Now we know where he got his talent.