After 103 years, the Manoa Cup never fails to surprise.

Monday’s qualifying for the state’s most prestigious amateur golf championship produced a first round that will include three girls, 13-year-old Sian Rogers and 64-year-old Gary Petersmeyer.

The cut came at 79, with Alan Wong and Mark Uekawawinning a playoff for the 63rd and 64th spots. Defending champion David Fink is seeded first and tees off first today at 7 a.m. against Uekawa. Moanalua High School senior Seungjae Maeng earned medalist honors with a 3-under-par 68 and plays Wong.

Following in the prodigious footsteps of Michelle Wie — the first woman in this match-play tournament — Marissa Chow (74), Alina Ching and Alice Kim all qualified. Ching bogeyed her last three holes, while Kim took triple bogey on the 18th.

In the first 102 years of Manoa Cup only three females qualified — Wie, Mari Chun and Ching, who reached the Round of 16 last year. She will attend Pepperdine in the fall and Chow — an ‘Iolani senior — will join her in 2012. Both are OCC members. Kim is headed to Gonzaga this fall.

Rogers and Petersmeyer both started on Oahu Country Club’s steep back nine and caught the worst of the rain, but still fired 6-over-par 77s to get in with a bit of breathing room. The morning began with 94 golfers. Two did not turn in scorecards and Fink, essentially playing a practice round since he receives the top seed as the defending champ, took off after the 11th hole to work on his short game.

He finished finals at Oregon State on Thursday and admits he has been struggling with his game. That continued in qualifying, but he said he couldn’t get mad because he was so happy to be home, and back in the "warm rain."

Wet conditions affect Ching, Chow and Kim more than most. While the guys hit short irons and wedges into most OCC holes, they are often hitting 5-irons and hybrids. Rain makes the course even longer. Ching worked past that last year, winning twice before losing to 2009 champ TJ Kua.

"My first goal last year was to make it past qualifying and then every day I got a new goal," Ching said. "Then I finally hit TJ and thought, ‘OK, don’t get embarrassed.’ "

The rain was no surprise at OCC, along with the mud, enough breeze to keep folks guessing and startlingly quick greens. Maeng handled it best, in his second Manoa Cup appearance. He had five birdies — four on the back nine.

Only 11 golfers finished under par, including four-time champ Brandan Kop, 2006 winner Jonathan Ota and the first two out — Sean Maekawa and Corey Kozuma. The other 80 were at par or worse. Lorens Chan shot even-par 71. The ‘Iolani senior, who has won two of the past three state high school championships, opens against Rudy Cabalar Jr., a Campbell High senior who won the other.

Maekawa, the state high school champ for Honokaa in 2007, just finished his collegiate golf career at the University of Oregon and will graduate in December. He hopes to turn pro, and he hopes to get more out of this week than he has the past few frustrating months.

"It’s really different not being in college golf and playing other tournaments. I like it," said Maekawa, who had his best season statistically this year (73.2 scoring average) but played just six tournaments. "I really feel like I’m on my own now. When you play in college, you are playing for your coach and your team and your school. It feels like a lot more is riding on me right now and I like that.

"I just want to get better this week. Get myself ready for the next stage."