With one pure putting stroke, Kalena Preus closed another chapter of Hawaii golf’s "Young and the Restless" on Sunday.
Preus, a Punahou junior, won the windblown Turtle Bay Amateur on the first playoff hole. His 6-foot birdie putt finally silenced ‘Iolani senior Lorens Chan, the reigning state high school champion.
Preus, the reigning ILH champ, shot 1-under-par 71 at Turtle Bay’s Palmer and Fazio courses Saturday and Sunday. Chan shot 70 in the final round at Fazio to catch him.
Moanalua sophomore John Oda shared the lead with Preus going into the final round. He was even with Chan and Preus after 16 holes Sunday after he slam dunked a 30-foot birdie putt. A three-putt bogey on the next hole left him out of the playoff.
Oda (72—143), this year’s Manoa Cup runnerup, was the only other golfer to finish under par on Turtle Bay’s notoriously windy layouts.
The breeze didn’t seem to faze the final group. On their final nine (Fazio’s front), with the heat on and the breeze making a three-club difference on distances, the threesome combined for just two bogeys.
Preus erased his immediately by hitting his second shot on the par-5 fourth to 15 feet and draining the eagle putt. That put him one up on Oda and two ahead of Chan. He called it a defining, and necessary, moment.
"This group was playing so good down the stretch," Preus said. "John is young but he’s good. And all of a sudden Lorens just starts doing what he does."
Chan caught him with consecutive birdies on Nos. 6 and 7 — nearly holing out from the fairway for the last one.
He could not match that magic at No. 9 — twice. On the final hole of regulation he had 101 yards to the hole and pulled his approach shot into the bunker. His sand shot rolled over the edge of the hole and left him 6 feet for par.
Preus put his approach 12 feet above the hole, but left his putt for the win short.
"No complaints there," Preus said. "Lorens and I were tied and I just tried to feed it down there, don’t try to do anything fancy. Just knock in a two-putt and put the pressure on him."
Chan, No. 22 in the national junior rankings and already committed to UCLA for next fall, backed off his par putt once, then jammed it into the heart of the hole to force the playoff.
They went back to the ninth tee. Preus hit to the hole first and, from 131 yards out, left it 6 feet above.
Chan followed with an approach from 116 yards that left him 25 feet.
"I hit it (the approach) where I wanted," he said, "but the wind died a little bit."
He gave his birdie attempt a chance, but it rolled by — "I might have gunned it a little bit" — and this time Preus’ putting stroke was true.
"The second time I was relaxed, I was smiling," he said. "It was just a good feeling walking up to the hole. I had a song in my head."
It was Preus’ first competitive tournament since the Junior America’s Cup in July. He has undergone a swing change since at the David Leadbetter Golf Academy in Florida. There were no signs of competitive rust.
"Kalena was steady," Chan said. "It was hard to catch up because they weren’t making any bogeys. The only way to do it was to make birdies."
Defending champion Rudy Cabalar Jr., a Campbell High senior and former state high school champion, had the tournament’s only sub-70 round. He fired 68 Sunday to tie for fourth at 147 with Brandan Kop (71). Jino Sohn (76) and Ryan Kuroiwa (73) shared sixth.