This major shift in the current landscape of Hawaii women’s golf did not start when 13-year-old Michelle Wie won the 2002 Hawaii State Open by 13 shots or after Cassy Isagawa’s ridiculous round of 62 at the Ka‘anapali Kai Course in last summer’s Maui Women’s Invitational.
But all of that combined with the utter dominance of Hawaii juniors in the three women’s majors over the past 20 to 30 years has left this week’s Hawaii State Women’s Golf Association Match Play Championship with a dramatically different look.
It is handicapped, however you want to define that.
The HSWGA now requires those who play its events — state stroke and match play and the senior championship — be dues-paying members of HSWGA clubs. That leaves out any junior whose family does not belong to a private club. College golfers are pretty much gone, too. The Hawaii State Junior Golf Association asked about becoming a member of HSWGA, but as an organization — not a club — it was denied.
Instead of scratch golfers who spend the rest of the year competing at the highest level nationally and internationally, the match play field this year has 16 players with handicaps as high as 24. Only Fe Clock and Mira Han have single-digit handicap indexes so HSWGA President Gwen Omori, the tournament director, is putting handicaps into play to decide the "state champion."
"If we had more players with 10 handicap or lower, I would have made a championship flight and a handicap flight," Omori said. "However, this is the first year we are having it for members only. I feel confident next year we will have more participants. I am encouraged because the ladies are excited about this tournament being exclusively for them."
On the bright side, the field is twice as large as last year and if participation is the point this is already a success. Omori senses it could grow in the future as more women believe they seriously have a shot at a title.
On the historical side, whoever wins Friday will be a very good golfer, and have had a great week, but she won’t be the best in the state.
The Jennie K., state stroke and match play championships go back to 1924 and have always been the majors of Hawaii women’s golf. That is changing. Anna Umemura, who won all three and added a state high school championship in 1997, might go down as the only golfer to ever get the grand slam in the same year.
"To me, if you do it that way it’s not really a championship," says Hawaii Golf Hall of Famer Bev Kim. "It’s just an HSWGA members’ championship, that’s all it is. It doesn’t have the title of a statewide championship."
Kim, now a grandmother, won the stroke play title in 1972, before she was married. She captured the Jennie K. in 1982. Her last match play championship came in 2000, at age 54.
The last non-student to win match play was former University of Hawaii player and coach Bobbi Kokx, who was 39 when she won her second consecutive title in 2003.
In 2001, Stephanie Kono became the youngest to win it, at 11. Wie won the Jennie K. the same year, at the same age. Lately, college players have felt old at the state championships and in Jennie K’s championship flight.
That could be over. Last year stroke play was canceled when only six signed up. The low turnout there and at match play were a major reason for the change.
Players that good, and that young, have many more competitive opportunities in the summer than HSWGA members. They might like to stay home and play our "majors" and they will, if nothing better is on the mainland.
But college coaches — with scholarships available — are at USGA and other national events. And college players are encouraged to "play up" in the summer to hone their game. Part of the problem last year was having stroke play pushed back, putting it the same week as the final U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links.
Beyond that, as one father of a collegiate player brought up a few weeks ago, the younger players now wonder if they are really wanted at local events.
"The bottom line is the juniors are not wanted," says Kim, a member of the HSWGA Board who was against the change. "That’s the feeling I get from everybody.
"They forced the rest of us to take our games up. To me, if you’re going to win a championship, you want to win against the best, even if the best is 12 years old."
Maybe by the time those golfers can drive this will change again.
"In the future, if we do not see an increase in these tournaments, we will be back to the drawing board," Omori said. "Nothing is written in stone. And believe it or not, HSWGA ladies are flexible."
