Hearing footsteps is something you get used to if you are a member of the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association. It is not the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

Two shots — total — separated the winners of three age divisions at Tuesday’s final round of the King Auto Group 12-and-Under State Championship. The exception was Girls 11-12, where Mari Nishiura grabbed a seven-stroke advantage Monday at Hawaii Prince Golf Club, then shot a second 1-under-par 71 in the final round to win by eight.

Nishiura, about to enter eighth grade at Mililani Middle School, converted a bunch of birdies both days to keep her confident when bogeys inevitably came. She sank the first of four birdie putts on her opening hole Tuesday to keep her calm.

Andrew Chin shot 70, but had to go overtime to shake Hilo’s Shon Katahira in Boys 11-12. Katahira had the lowest round of the tournament, closing with a 4-under 68 to catch Chin, who needed a five-footer for par on the final hole of regulation to get into the playoff.

On the first extra hole (240-yard par 4), Chin chipped in for birdie and Katahira tied him with a 20-foot putt. Both parred the second playoff hole, but on the third (403-yard par-5), Chin two-putted for birdie to end it.

"My swing feels kind of off a bit so I was just working on my putting and chipping," said Chin, 12. "Yesterday, my putting was off, so I was just hanging in there, hanging in there, grinding it out until I got it to work."

Chin will enter Punahou next semester as a seventh-grader. He and Nishiura were the only golfers to break par both days at Prince.

Aneka Seumanutafa, a 10-year-old who has been golfing a year, was the only medalist from last week’s Junior World qualifier to repeat. The St. Joseph fifth-grader closed with a 73 at her home course to win Girls 9-10.

The 5-foot-3 Seumanutafa is a head higher and was a shot better than Miki Manta (76—153), who was 2 under on her back nine (Prince’s B Course).

Seumanutafa pronounces her first name the same as Annika Sorenstam, who inspired her to start golf because she hit the ball so far and was such a good putter. Seumanutafa already drives the ball 200 yards and her short game is catching up. She traced her one-shot victory to a long birdie putt on her 12th hole.

Both boys champions train at Kevin Ralbovsky’s KMR School of Golf at Koolau. Taylor John McGerity, whose name is about as long as he is, just started running the steep Koolau Course for conditioning.

He fired the only sub-par round in two days in Boys 10-under. The 4-foot-7 Kahala Elementary fourth-grader closed with a 71 to edge Hilo’s Pono Yanagi (72—146).

McGerity said the difference this week was his short game and pointed to two holes that won it for him. The first was a nine-foot birdie putt on the ninth — one of five that fell the final day. He hit his drive nearly 250 yards on the next hole, coming up three feet short of the green and converting another birdie opportunity.

Even after the playoff, all 49 players finished in 6 hours. Some of the early groups played their rounds in less than 4 hours. The youngest divisions played Prince’s B-C nines at 4,486 yards and the older ones played from the forward tees (5,205 yards).