Ishii ponders pending sunset on bright career

David Ishii was only an In-N-Out burger away from the most discouraging of his four U.S. Senior Open appearances last Friday. Breaking out ID to pay for items purchased at Sacramento’s gigantic Haggin Oaks Golf Shop, the cashier asked why he was in town.

"I’m playing a tournament," Hawaii’s Golf, State High School and Sports Hall of Famer said softly.

"What tournament?" the cashier asked.

"U.S. Senior Open," Ishii said, even more softly.

"What’s your name," the surprised cashier asked.

"David."

Ishii might be Hawaii’s most successful homegrown golfer, but you will never hear it from him.

An older, wiser and much less surprised assistant at the golf shop asked Ishii how he had done. Rounds of 82 and 79 had left him 17 off the cutline, some 30 years after Ishii was the Japan PGA Tour’s money leader.

"David" dejectedly told the golf shop assistant the grim details and the man didn’t hesitate.

"You were playing," he told Ishii, who turns 60 later this month. "Everybody else was watching."

By the time Ishii left the shop, an assistant who had worked at Princeville was filling his colleagues in on Ishii’s legendary Hawaii status. "David" was filling a bit better, but also every bit the realist.

At last week’s U.S. Senior Open, in the searing 103-degree temperatures of Del Paso Country Club, he felt much closer to the end of his remarkable career than the beginning.

"It gave me something to work on," he said. "On the other side, it makes me think I can’t play these kind of tournaments anymore. This one is really bad. It just showed my game … I missed the cut by 17 strokes. Last year I missed by one."

He would ask his golf students, ages 8 to 98, what they learned after the USGA’s typically torturous Open setup reduced him to hitting hybrids on almost every fairway. But Ishii claimed this one was so bad he didn’t learn a thing.

"I just got beat up," he said. "I didn’t hit my irons too well or my wedges.The first practice round already I knew this course was going to be difficult for me. I couldn’t reach the holes."

He wasn’t alone. Ishii’s lone birdie, on the sixth hole Friday, was the first in his group over two days. The cut came at 5-over par. The 636-yard 15th was the longest hole in tournament history. Many struggled mightily.

Hawaii’s Dave Eichelberger, the 1999 U.S. Senior champ and oldest player (71) last week, also missed the cut with rounds of 77-79. Eicrhelberger was playing in his 22nd consecutive Senior Open.

Jeff Maggert ultimately mastered Del Paso, finishing at 10-under 270 for his second major title in 23 Champions Tour starts. He had none in 615 PGA Tour starts.

Ishii played 39 PGA Tour events, winning the 1990 Hawaiian Open. But his heart — and loads of common sense — led him to Japan. He won the inaugural Kapalua International in 1982, convincing his bosses at Pearl Country Club to keep supporting him, and headed east.

Three years later, he won for the first time in Japan.

"I remember that because I had to win the tournament to be exempt," recalls Ishii, who shot a second-round 63 and hoped rain would cancel the final round. "I never thought I’d have the opportunity to win a tournament. That was a big obstacle. Once I did that it helped me think I could get more."

He would win 14 times in Japan and is still 13th on the career money list with more than $10 million in earnings. In 1987, the year he got married, Ishii won six times and became the first foreigner to lead the money list. Dunlop, one of his sponsors, gave him a bonus equal to his winnings "so that was a big year."

He lost to Sandy Lyle in overtime at World Match Play, qualified for his first American majors and was invited to Firestone’s World Series of Golf for the first time.

"That tournament was always the most fun because people everywhere say thank you for coming," Ishii says. "No place else do they tell you thank you for coming. Every hole they thank you."

Ishii hasn’t won on Japan’s regular tour since 1992, but has a long, prosperous and popular career there and still plays senior events. He hung out with Kiyoshi Murota, Massy Kuramoto and Kohki "Pepsi" Idoki at Del Paso.

Ishii was surprised to qualify for this year’s Senior Open, after dealing with injuries the past several months. It is difficult to hear him talk about "fading away" in the game and being content as an instructor and the face of the David S. Ishii Foundation, which sponsors the high school championship.

He says he knew in the practice rounds last week that he was nearing the end.

"I couldn’t reach the holes, I was 230 yards out," he recalls. "They moved the tees up 30 or 40 yards in the tournament, but I watched Tom Watson on the ninth hole. I hit driver there, missed right and hit pitching wedge in. Watson hit an iron off the tee and sand wedge into the green. I just shook my head. … I’m thinking this guy is 65!"

Ishii has been living his dream five fewer years. In the beginning, the dream was about playing the PGA Tour, "but then reality strikes." His career went a different direction, but his accomplishments over nearly 40 years are beyond anything anyone from Hawaii can claim in the game.

His only real regret seems to be a lack of success in American majors. Last week’s frustration is still fresh and so are his injuries. Maybe it will fade before he makes the choice to let his career fade off into the sunset.

Hawaii can only hope.