Hawaii continues LPGA history

Saturday’s phenomenal finish to the Lotte Championship at Ko Olina was just the latest in Hawaii’s long and improbable LPGA history.

Way before 22-year-old Lotte champion Sei Young Kim was born, Hall of Famer Amy Alcott was winning the 1982 Women’s Kemper Open at Ka‘anapali — the LPGA’s first appearance in Hawaii. Hall of Famers Kathy Whitworth and Betsy King won the next two WKOs.

Roosevelt graduate Jeannette Kerr tied for fourth behind King in 1984. A year earlier another Roosevelt alum — Lenore Muraoka — won the LPGA’s Virginia Bank Classic. It would be almost 30 years before Michelle Wie would give Hawaii another homegrown LPGA champion.

King would win Kemper twice more after it moved to Princeville. The final three WKOs were played at Wailea, in 1990, ’91 and ’92. By then, the LPGA had added a tournament on Oahu.

The inaugural Tsumura Hawaiian Ladies Open at Turtle Bay in 1987 might have been the most memorable — and improbable.

Cindy Rarick, born and raised in Minnesota but seeking a warm place to work on her game in college, played for the University of Hawaii from 1978-80. In two years, Rarick discovered the warmth of Hawaii extended far beyond its weather. She made many, many friends and created a bond that still thrives today.

Rarick (then Cindy Flom) won the Hawaii State Women’s match and stroke play titles in 1978 and left Manoa two years later to turn pro. She qualified for the LPGA in 1984 and her first win came at that first Hawaiian Ladies Open.

She was in tears at the end, telling the crowd "I can’t tell you what this means to me." Many in the crowd knew her and were in tears as well. Rarick’s victory celebration was in the parking lot with the volunteers.

She would go on to win four more times on tour and first signed to represent Waikoloa in 1989. Last Thanksgiving, a golf lifetime later, Waikoloa asked her to wear its logo again. She cried again.

"I was so honored and excited, that I cried," Rarick said from her home in Arizona. "Tears of thanks and gratitude. I returned to Waikoloa again in February for a week of golf, yoga and whale watching. My plan is never to let a year go by that I don’t visit Hawaii."

She doesn’t follow the tour now as much as she thought she would.

"Time flies and also with so many new players each year, I guess I feel removed from it," Rarick says. "However I’m so happy that the tour is thriving, so international. It is great that Michelle won in Hawaii last year and won her first major. She has amazing talent."

Rarick does follow Hawaii, however. She has vivid memories of all the courses she has played and "the lifestyle, food and music, which I miss so much." She particularly misses the people, plate lunches and playing tournaments here, where she collected a big part of her $2 million in career earnings.

Kerr, Rarick and Muraoka, who is now in the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame, all played 20-plus years on tour. They might never have seen anything like Sei Young Kim’s finish Saturday, where she chipped in on the final hole of regulation to force a playoff with third-ranked Inbee Park, then holed out from the fairway to win. But they have seen plenty of improbable finishes and participated in a few, some right here.

The LPGA has been in Hawaii every year but three (2004, 2010-11) since 1982. Sponsors have ranged from Orient Leasing, Orix, Itoman, Itoki, Pizza-La and Cup Noodles to Takefuji, ConAgra, SBS, Fields, Kapalua and Lotte, and Lotte just signed on for three more years.

Rarick will be watching. The last of her five wins came in 1991. She works in real estate now and is a partner in Silvara Vineyards in Washington.

"Life is comprised of stages or chapters, and I am thrilled and thankful that for 25 years I got to compete with the best who play women’s professional golf," she says. "I got to travel the world and even better make many long time friends who have become like family to me. It is all a wonderful journey."