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Fujikawa to open eGolf season
Tadd Fujikawa is playing in the eGolf Professional Tour’s first 2014 event this week at Hilton Head Island, S.C. The tour, based in Charlotte, N.C., is starting its 13th season.
The Palmetto Hall Championship, which ends Saturday, is the first of 15 regular-season events before the inaugural four-event Million Dollar Championship Series. The series will have a 156-player field made up of the top 50 from the eGolf Tour and top 30 from the first year of the eGolf Tour West and eGolf Tour Florida. The other 46 spots are up for grabs.
This week’s tournament has golfers from 20 states and 10 countries.
Fujikawa, a Moanalua High alum, became the youngest to play in the U.S. Open when he qualified in 2006 at age 15. The next year he became the second youngest to make the cut at a PGA Tour event, at the Sony Open in Hawaii. He won the eGolf Tour Championship in 2010 and was fourth on the money list.
Fujikawa said he plans to play eGolf this year and try to Monday qualify for some Web.com and PGA Tour events.
On the women’s tours this week, Hawaii’s Michelle Wie is one of 63 golfers at the LPGA’s HSBC Women’s Champions in Singapore. Hawaii’s Nicole Sakamoto, Stephanie Kono and Anna Jang are playing the Volvik Championship in City of Industry, Calif. It is the Symetra Tour’s first event in California since 2001 and is being played at Pacific Palms. Kimberly Kim is an alternate.
Kono, currently living in Irvine, Calif., qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open twice at Pacific Palms while she was going to UCLA.
LPGA member Alena Sharp won last week’s Visit Mesa Gateway Classic, which opened the 2014 Symetra schedule. Sharp had a three-day total of 12-under 204. Sakamoto shot 68-74-77219 in her Symetra debut and tied for 54th. Jang (222) got a share of 68th in her debut and Kono was another shot back.
Haiku’s Keiley wins on Kauai
Haiku’s Justin Keiley came home last week at least to Kauai to win his second collegiate title.
The Baldwin graduate and Brigham Young senior shot 68-66 in the first two rounds of the 38th annual John H. Burns Intercollegiate. When morning rain and lightning canceled Friday’s final round at Wailua Golf Course, his 10-under-par total held up.
He beat Cal’s Joel Stalter, the defending champion who is ranked 19th nationally, by four. Arizona’s Erik Oja was five back.
Second-ranked Cal (16-under 560) won the team event for the fourth straight year. BYU, ranked 29th, tied for second with seventh-ranked Texas A&M, nine shots back.
They were the only schools to break par at Wailua. Hawaii (590) took 13th, led by Nainoa Calip’s 18th-place finish. UH’s B team (597) tied for 14th. UH Hilo (602), the only NCAA Division II squad in the 17-team tournament, was last.
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