Thompson to showcase best college women

Thirty years ago, Hawaii and Arizona shared the inaugural Donnis Thompson Invitational championship. The Wildcats have gone on to win seven more, including last year, while the Rainbow Wahine have settled in among the mid-majors of women’s golf.

This year’s tournament, named after the woman who started and nurtured UH women’s athletics, tees off Tuesday at Kaneohe Klipper. The field still features some of the best and brightest — 15th-ranked Texas A&M is going after its third title here on the 10th-ranked shoulders of Marijosse Navaro — and the best of the rest.

The gap seems as great as the ocean Hawaii’s 14 competitors had to cross to get here. It is growing even in an individual sport like golf, as rich power conferences and big-time benefactors keep raising the bar.

For example, Northwestern sophomore Kacie Komoto — the 2012 Hawaii state high school champion — doesn’t worry about the chill in the Illinois air. Her eighth-ranked golf team flies to Florida on weekends to train and get out on a course after practicing four hours a day at their indoor facility during the week. It was part of what attracted her.

"Growing up in Hawaii," Komoto says, "I had originally thought practicing indoors would be a bad thing, but after my (recruiting) visit, I thought, ‘Here’s a team in a place where the weather may not be ideal, yet they still are able to contend with some of the best teams out here, so they must be doing something very right.’ At the time, I didn’t know if it was their work ethic, their resources, or something else. But now I know it’s a little of both."

When she was in college, Wahine coach Lori Castillo played for Tulsa and Stanford, both powerhouses in the 1970s. She says there were 50 women’s teams then and remembers driving to Texas to train when "we hadn’t seen grass in three months" in Oklahoma, but it was nothing like the resources available now.

"When you look at the five big conferences, which Northwestern is a part of, they live in a different world altogether," Castillo says. "They average $25 million in TV money they can use in their athletic department. Going to Florida is not a big deal.

"At Northwestern you have to do that. You have to invest in your team so it gets to practice outside and can compete in tournaments in March and be ready for conference championships and the rest of it."

It isn’t just money for a rainy or snowy day, either. Cal and UNLV, perennially successful men’s teams, take no money from their athletic departments, raising it all on their own.

Hawaii men’s coach Ronn Miyashiro has raised $100,000 each of the last three seasons — more than he gets from UH. Most comes from their tournaments, a few fundraisers and the help of sponsors like Oakley, along with a few generous donors. He spends $60,000 a year on travel. The next biggest expense is summer school.

Castillo is content with her travel and tournament budget and is fully funded with six scholarships. Ping has been generous with equipment. When the Wahine, who host three events, go to Maui later this month for their Anuenue Spring Break Classic, Kapalua throws in all the green fees, helping UH do better than break even.

She is grateful for the help she gets, but regrets being UH’s "only sport that does not have an assistant coach."

"All programs understand the importance of having another human body there," she says. "I not only spread myself around to help the players, but there is also recruiting and operations. For 10 days I had a fever of 104 and could not go to practice, so practices were voluntary, not mandatory. That’s a problem."

"If you have an extra body it can help a lot if they have experience. But that’s money."

Money Hawaii has never found, part of the reason Castillo would be content with a top-five finish next week. Along with A&M, Oklahoma State and Baylor are also in Golfweek’s Top 25 and Middle Tennessee State is 53rd.

The UH coach would like to see her team in there with the likes of Fresno State (69) and Idaho (80), and "in a zone" where we can "free our minds up." That’s what practice has been all about lately.

Sophomore Izzy Leung, from Hong Kong, has led Hawaii in five of its six starts and won the season-opening Oregon State Invitational. Racquel Ek, a sophomore from San Diego, is usually next and has four top 30s. She recently won an intra-squad match play challenge, which couldn’t have been easy with this team’s dynamics.

"This team’s best quality is that they work together well as a team, look after each other," Castillo says. "There’s no jealousy. They are supportive of each other and complimentary when others do well. They spend a lot of time together on their own."

Former Wahine player and coach Bobbi Kokx won the first Donnis Thompson Invitational in 1986. Other champions include Annika Sorenstam (1991 and ’92), Janice Moodie (1994 and ’97) and Natalie Gulbis (2001).