Tadd Fujikawa has taken his father’s favorite lures to Georgia, Ayaka Kaneko is desperately seeking Starbucks in Australia’s second-largest city and Stephanie Kono is happy she managed to find Melbourne.
Hawaii’s three young golf professionals are about to start work full time in 2012.
Today, Kaneko and Kono begin their LPGA careers at the season-opening ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open at the historic Royal Melbourne Golf Club. Fujikawa tees off on the eGolf Professional Tour on Feb. 15 at the Palmetto Hall Championship, in Hilton Head, S.C. — about 125 miles north of his training base in Georgia.
Kono and Kaneko, both 22, graduated from Punahou and Sacred Hearts in 2008. They made their way to the premier women’s tour on the planet with top-15 finishes at December’s Qualifying Tournament, and are among the 15 rookies in the LPGA’s season opener. Hawaii’s Michelle Wie, a few months from graduation at Stanford, is not playing. Wie is now No. 18 in the Rolex World Rankings.
Kono had to give up her senior year at UCLA — and a chance to become the Bruins’ first four-time first-team All-American — to turn pro when she qualified. Kaneko came to Q-School from the Futures — now Symetra — Tour, the LPGA’s version of the Nationwide Tour. She was 14th on the money list last year, winning about $27,000.
Kaneko was born in Japan and moved to Hawaii at age 11, picking up golf the next year. She can’t find a Starbucks in Melbourne, but that’s a minor road bump for a golfer eagerly anticipating new places, people and "all types of food" on this excellent golf adventure.
"I just want to make every cut, stay healthy — no injury — and enjoy the opportunity," Kaneko said.
Her focus lately has been on quality of time playing as opposed to quantity of time practicing.
"Of course practice is very important," Kaneko said, "but I need to see myself on the course making tons of three-footers, hitting a nice high draw off the tees, getting up and down from awkward positions. Everyone can pull it off when they are practicing, but I realized that it is about what you can do when you are actually playing on the course."
Kaneko is in the New Zealand Open next week, then heading to a JLPGA event in Okinawa before returning for the first LPGA domestic events. She and Kono both plan to play as much as they can and are ecstatic to be coming home in April for the inaugural LPGA Lotte Championship at Ko Olina.
Kono’s focus recently has been on her short game, and fending for herself after depending on her parents and coaches for everything off the course up to now.
"I didn’t realize it would be so much work," said Kono, whose breakout win came in the State Women’s Match Play Championship 10 years ago. "I think transitioning from college golf to the LPGA so quickly will be challenging for me in several ways, so my goal this year is to soak in the experience and really learn from this year. Obviously I want to play well and be in contention at tournaments, and I think I will learn what I really need to do to be in that position constantly."
Fujikawa, 21, turned pro just before starting his junior year at Moanalua. That was a year after he became the youngest to play in the U.S. Open and six months after he tied for 20th at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Fujikawa played eGolf Tour full time in 2010 and won the Tour Championship. A swing change and thumb injury frustrated him last year, but last month he moved up 22 spots on Sunday at the Sony — into the top 20 — and won $69,025.
He also caught a 15-pound ulua and worked on his new passion — tennis — before leaving for the East Coast two weeks ago. The plan is to play the eGolf Tour again, with stops at Nationwide qualifiers, other mini tours and — hopefully — some PGA exemptions.
He will play eGolf’s Oldfield Open later this month. The tour features 216-player fields and $200,000-plus purses. Golfers come from 25 states and 15 countries, but spectators are few and far between. That can be tough on Fujikawa who, like Wie, plays his best in front of huge crowds.
"I just want to see how good I can get this year and try to win every tournament I play in," Fujikawa said. "That’s something you have to learn to do. The mini tours are different when there are no crowds around. It amps you up when you have a crowd. I’ve got to learn to amp myself up."
