Justin Taparra was understandably drained after two tours of Ala Wai Golf Course on Sunday.
The team of Taparra and Andy Okita won two matches on Saturday to advance to the final of the 66th Francis Brown Four-Ball Match Play Championship.
Taparra then worked his night job at a Domino’s in Mililani deep into the evening, affording him just a little rest before returning to Ala Wai for Sunday’s 7:16 a.m. tee time in the 36-hole title match.
“I messed up my first four holes because I was still trying to wake up,” Taparra said, “and then I picked it back up in the middle of the round.”
After a bit of a groggy start, Taparra and Okita found their rhythm late in their first 18 holes and rolled to a 5-and-4 victory over Matthew Allen and Patrick Silva in the final.
Allen and Silva led for most of the first 14 holes before Taparra and Okita squared the match at the par-3 15th, took their first lead with a par at No. 17, “and it just kind of built from there,” Okita said.
They were 2 up after the first 18 holes then pulled away on the front nine of their second round. Taparra rolled in a long birdie putt on the par-5 11th to push the lead to 4 up, and a par on 12 gave Taparra and Okita their second win in a team event in the past two years.
“I was hitting the ball really well and I was super confident,” Taparra said of the final surge. “It’s hard to miss when you’re four or five up. Everything looks so much wider. The hole looks so much bigger.”
Co-workers off the course, Okita and Taparra live “about one minute away from each other” in Mililani and try to work in at least couple of rounds of golf per week.
They partnered to win the Hawaii State Golf Association Four-Ball Tournament at Ted Makalena Golf Course last year and added the match-play title on Sunday.
“I just get par … he’s more the aggressive player,” Okita said. “So I guess that makes it a pretty good team. It balances out.”
Along with their playing styles, Taparra said their temperaments on the course mesh.
“We both don’t get upset, and if we do start to get upset we always keep each other in check and we always motivate each other to try to be better,” he said. “If one guy makes a mistake, the other guy always picks it up.”
Taparra closed his college career at Chaminade with a 12th-place finish in the PacWest Conference championship April 27 at Turtle Bay’s Fazio Course and fired a personal-best 63 in qualifying for the four-ball tournament last weekend.
After losing in the first round last year, Taparra and Okita survived the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds on Saturday and claimed the title on Sunday.
“In this wind … birdies were tough out there with the pin positions and how long the course was playing,” Taparra said of Sunday’s final. “Just playing smart, keeping the ball in play was the key for us winning today.”
Justin Forsythe and John Mun won the A-Flight with a 3 and 2 win over Marc Higuchi and Ted Shiraishi. Alan Arakawa and Merl Miyashiro won the B-Flight 3 and 2 over Darrell Chung and Ryan Fujishige.
