Next season’s Rainbow Wahine golf team will be unrecognizable.

In May, Hawaii coach Lori Castillo will leave the game she has had such a huge impact on since she was a teenager. She and her new husband, Stewart Chow, are planning to build a house near Volcano Village.

UH seniors Daezsa Tomas, Izzy Leung, Kelli-Anne Katsuda and Raquel Ek will go their separate and — judging by the last four years — successful ways.

A new coach — from Hawaii or pretty much anywhere on the planet because this is golf — will come on board. They will be the 13th Rainbow Wahine golf coach.

The list includes two Castillos — Lori and father Ron, from the late 1970s. Both are in the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame.

What if the players could pick their new coach? They know what they like, what works and have the greatest investment in the program.

This year’s team, which hosts the 32nd Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational on March 14-15 at Kaneohe Klipper, can draw a vivid picture of what it believes would work best for the next coach.

Players use words like “effective communicator, open-minded, creative thinker, personable, good listener, positive, unconditional encouragement and patience, caring, good role model, experienced, knowledgeable and consistency.”

“It’s also really important for a coach to be able to inspire you and motivate you to play,” Katsuda says. “We’re out there playing for hours and it’s easy to lose focus and motivation. So to have a coach be there to tell you the words that will rekindle that competitive fire is crucial.

“Communication is key, and being able to talk to your coach on a comfortable level is everything. We all go through ups and downs, and when you’re going through those downs is when you want to hear the words of wisdom and experience that only your coach can give you.”

For the past nine years — the longest stretch ever — that coach has been Lori Castillo, mostly alone. There is no money for a full-time assistant.

She was the first female to hold two U.S. Golf Association titles at the same time, after winning the 1978 U.S. Girls Junior Championship and consecutive U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links titles in 1979 and ’80. She was on Tulsa’s 1980 AIAW Championship team, was an honorable mention All-American at Stanford and played on the Ladies European and Asian tours.

Now it’s time to move on. The traits Castillo finds most necessary in her successor are much more mundane than what players look for. She has found organizational and time-management skills imperative. She has learned lots about public relations, particularly as it pertains to boosters. The wacky world of recruiting has been an adventure.

Teaching technique and skills, to say nothing of staying calm and confident, will always be a challenge. So will coaching in Hawaii, where the weather is wonderful but the travel — across the island and the ocean — can be exhausting.

She and her seniors all have their eyes on one more title. Hawaii hasn’t won its Thompson Invitational since the first year (1986). This year’s field has five Top-25 teams, including two-time defending champion Oklahoma State, which set the tournament record (860) last year.

Winning at Klipper might be a stretch. Winning the Big West, next month at Riverside, Calif., is not. Since 2010, UH has two conference runner-up finishes. It won its first team title in 19 years last season and has three top-fives this season, including second in its last start.

Leung is one of five Rainbow Wahine — ever — to win an individual title and she has a second and fifth this year. Tomas also has a pair of Top 10s and tied with Leung to record the low round of the season at 70. Ek and sophomore Kaci Masuda have one each.

“I think it would be great to round out my college career, along with the other three seniors, with a conference championship,” Ek says. “To have the memory that we went all out and left everything on the course for our last tournament and win would be a great feeling.”

If not, there is always next year, for a team that will look little like this one — from the top down. Castillo has signed four recruits. Canadian Megan Ratcliffe started this semester and was 35th in her debut. Tyra Tonkham (California), Emma Lower (Arizona) and Sahara Washington (Texas) come in the fall.

It will be another adventure.