The Hawaii Junior Golf Association’s Patriarch

Back when David Ishii, Jay Hinazumi and Wendell Tom were kids, Bob Tom and the late Ted Makalena began the Hawaii Junior Golf Association, in 1966. It was a different golf world then. Woods were woods and Tiger Woods wasn’t born.

This year, the David S. Ishii Foundation/HHSAA Golf State Championships will be funded once more by Ishii’s annual benefit tournament. Wendell Tom, Hinazumi and Del-Marc Fujita are now running the tournament that Elton Tanaka built over its first 12 years.

The golfers who got their start from the vision of Makalena and Bob Tom — Wendell’s father — are now mentoring the mad skills of the new generation of Hawaii State Junior Golf Association members.

Tom turns 86 this year. He retired from his drapery and carpet business some 15 years ago, and his full-time volunteer gig as HSGA President and USGA Hawaii representative a bit before that. He suffers from dementia, but on his good days he can recite the names of the children he took to the first Junior Worlds in 1968, and the money — to the cent —he raised for junior golf when he revived the Hawaii State Open in 1974.

It was a revival of the original Hawaiian Open, which became a PGA Tour stop in 1965. Makalena won it the next year, becoming the first from Hawaii to capture a tour event. Tragically, he drowned two years later. Bob Tom named the Hawaii State Open after his friend.

The Ted Makalena Hawaii State Open was 72 holes and played at Ala Wai, where Tom staged two USGA championships. Every contestant had to walk. Every child in Tom’s junior golf association had to get a haircut and follow a dress code. There were maybe 150 kids in the program, nothing like the numbers of today, but it was a phenomenal start.

"Golf was not that big with young kids before Tiger Woods," Wendell Tom said. "Nobody started at 5. Well, a few started that young. David was rare."

The Ishiis would come from Kauai to stay with the Toms in the summer so David could play the junior tournaments, which were all on Oahu. Wendell started golfing at 10, along with his sister Jackie.

Ishii would end up winning an NCAA championship at Houston, which offered Wendell a partial scholarship. He turned it down and walked on at USC, where his teammates were Craig Stadler and Scott Simpson, and earned a scholarship the second year. Fujita would play for the Trojans a few years later. Simpson would marry a woman from Hawaii and live here, winning four Ted Makalena Hawaii State Open titles.

"He is most proud of starting the HJGA in 1966 and running it for 22 years," Wendell said of his father. "Just to see the kids who are grown who he has helped and the program that helped them get through school and college. Like Lance Suzuki, he was a great golfer at Kahuku and my dad helped him get the Tony Lema scholarship to BYU. Eventually Lance became an All-American. My dad went with him to the Waldorf Astoria to get his award."

Suzuki won Hawaii’s fourth state high school championship, in 1969. Ishii captured it in 1973 and Wendell Tom a year later.

Bob Tom played once a week at Ala Wai, where he met Makalena. His son remembers his father having "a horrible swing and a big old slice," but a finely tuned short game that kept his handicap in single digits.

"It was just his passion," Wendell says of his father. "He loves the game of golf. … For a while his first love was junior golf. Obviously the game has been good for his family, good for me. I had the opportunity to play college golf and play locally and now I’m working in the business. It’s cool now, some of the guys I work with I’ve known 30 or 40 years. We’re competitors, but we’re good friends. … Golf is amazing."

Wendell is the TaylorMade/adidas Golf rep in Hawaii, Fujita does the same for Bridgestone and U.S. Kids Clubs. Hinazumi has Nike, and is president of the Hawaii State Golf Association. All are good friends with Ishii, and now they are running his tournament.

What goes around, comes around.