Life on a professional golf tour means having to move on … quickly.

Having just finished a disappointing day on the course early Saturday afternoon, Ayaka Kaneko was already thinking about the logistics of the next leg of her rookie season on the LPGA Tour.

After signing her scorecard, Kaneko had a few hours left at home before embarking on an all-day journey to Alabama in advance of this week’s Mobile Bay LPGA Classic.

“It’s going to be a long day,” Kaneko said. “It’s a tough life, but you have to do it and you’ve got to love it to do it.”

Kaneko enjoyed a week in Hawaii playing in the inaugural Lotte Championship at Ko Olina Golf Club, but was ready to put the final round behind her after closing the tournament with a 7-over-par 79. She finished the week at 8-over 296 and made $3,696 as part of a tie for 67th.

“Everyone has those days and I had that day,” she said. “I have to learn from it and let it go and move on and hopefully next week is going to be better.”

Even with the rough finish to a promising week, Kaneko’s performance in persevering into the weekend provided motivation for some of those who followed her for the final round.

Joining her parents and grandmother, who traveled from Japan for the tournament, were a group of high school golfers who had played and practiced alongside the 22-year-old Sacred Hearts graduate through their junior golf days.

“It’s really inspirational,” said ‘Iolani senior Marissa Chow, who won the Interscholastic League of Honolulu title this week.

“You watch these people go through junior golf and they take lessons and you watch pretty much their transformation and it’s surreal, because as a golfer you hope to make it here one day.”

Punahou junior Kacie Komoto recently committed to Northwestern, and she played a few rounds with Kaneko at Ko Olina over the past year.

“It’s really cool to see her in this atmosphere and it’s really helpful for the juniors,” Komoto said. “It’s really nice to see what it would be like and get her opinion and just see it from her point of view from inside the ropes.

“To see her and Stephanie (Kono) and (Kimberly) Kim, who grew up through the same organizations we’ve grown up through, it’s really nice to see them go on to do great things.”

Kaneko had hoped to put together a strong performance to close the week after shooting 1 under on Friday. She stepped to the first tee Saturday morning at 1 over for the tournament and in a tie for 32nd place.

She parred her first six holes before carding back-to-back bogeys. Unlike her rounds earlier in the week, when timely birdies got her through some rough stretches, she couldn’t get things rolling her way on Saturday.

She made another bogey on No. 10, then birdied the next hole, making a 7-foot putt to get back to 3 over for the tournament. But the momentum dissipated on No. 13 when she pushed her drive into the water along the right side of the fairway. She later three-putted for double bogey.

“The last three days I was being really patient and I really wanted to play well for the people here and a lot of my friends came to see me,” Kaneko said. “But I think I was trying a little bit too hard out there. I was thinking too much and overanalyzing the shots.

“I was in a good position today, and I was ready to shoot a good score … but that’s golf.”