Golf hardly needed more evidence of its unpredictable nature, but recent Moanalua High graduate Brent Grant fanned the game’s wacky flames last Wednesday while torching Honolulu Country Club.
Grant and partner Bill Walbert are the Hawaii qualifiers for the inaugural U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship, next May at Olympic Club in San Francisco. Only Walbert was in surgery at Tripler Army Medical Center while the qualifying was going on.
While the 47-year-old perfusionist was focused on working with surgeons and a heart-lung machine during a procedure that required a cardiopulmonary bypass, Grant was beating his career low by five shots at HCC.
Walbert knew he couldn’t play the day before, but Grant wasn’t allowed to play with anyone else. However, because of USGA Four-Ball Rule 31-2 — "both partners need not be present" — he could play alone.
The future Oregon State Beaver went wild, shooting a bogey-free 9-under-par 63 that included a lip-out eagle putt on the last hole.
"I started off the round with an interesting par," Grant recalled. "Hit my drive left, got a good kick out, hit a good wedge shot for par, then I started to get the feel on the greens. On the (par-5) second, I was 45 feet away for eagle and my putt was about a centimeter from going in. That’s the moment when I was like, ‘OK, I can make a move.’"
His score, on a difficult HCC layout with "some of the best greens I’ve ever putted on," was stunning. His success was not.
Grant qualified for the U.S. Amateur last year with Walbert as caddie. He won the Army Invitational after a marathon seven-hole playoff with Dalen Yamauchi this summer, then captured the Turtle Bay Amateur last month — and switched putters.
His breakout round at HCC validated the change, though none of his birdie putts were outside 20 feet. His 63 consisted of consistency and great ball-striking, and a will to win against all odds. The Four-Ball, or best-ball, format is designed to encourage aggressive play and low scores, with only the best score of the team counting, not the only score.
Grant’s game is as good as it has ever been now and he didn’t flinch when he found out he would be partner-less.
"I’ve developed this slightly not-young philosophy of hope for the best and expect the worst …," he says. "I was feeling like it’s just me out there and realized I couldn’t make any mistakes. Fortunately, that day my mistakes were pars."
Two years ago, Tyler Ota — another Moanalua alum — won the 61st Francis Hyde I‘i Brown Four-Ball Match Play Championship while playing solo the final day. He fired a 66 in the morning to go 4 up. Then-13-year-olds Kyosuke Hara and Kyle Suppa — who finished a shot behind Grant at HCC — caught him on the next-to-last hole in the afternoon, but Ota won with par on the final hole.
"I don’t know how it happens," Ota said this week. "You are just more calm, nothing to lose. You are just going for it and the putts start to drop. You literally have nothing to lose. You don’t have to worry about letting someone down."
Ota’s rare and memorable victory came around the time Grant, a "military brat," moved back for his family’s second stint in Hawaii. Ota was one of the first guys he met, and "he and Johnny Oda taught me some lessons on the golf course."
The lessons have kept coming and Grant appears to be taking them more seriously, on the course and off. A "freshman folly" has him taking math and biology courses at Kapiolani Community College this school year to prepare for Oregon State, where his future coaches are keeping a close eye on him.
"I’ve got work to do, to be honest," Grant says. "The first half of this semester was a difficult thing, but I’m starting to gain some momentum, kind of like golf."
Grant is also working at Navy-Marine, where he met Walbert, a guy whose swing is "kind of funky, but he kills it."
Walbert was in Tripler’s intensive care unit with his patient when Grant texted him after qualifying. He called back three hours later.
"His reaction was," Grant grinned, "I can’t believe you did that."
Walbert has promised Grant a steak dinner as thanks for getting him a tee time at Olympic, which has hosted five U.S. Opens. A field of 128 teams tee off May 2. Chances are, the other 127 will get in the old-fashioned way.
The Four-Ball Championship is taking the place of U.S. Amateur Public Links, which started in 1922 and was the USGA’s fourth-oldest tournament. Hawaii’s Michelle Wie became the youngest champion in the history of USGA open events when she won the 2013 Women’s Amateur Public Links at 13.
