Jared Sawada signed his scorecard early Monday afternoon and figured, well, maybe next year.
Sawada had crafted a solid round of 2 under par through strong gusts whipping through Ewa Beach, but didn’t think his 70 at Hoakalei Country Club would be enough to earn a spot in this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii.
Typically in the tournament’s Monday qualifier, anything north of the 60s means loading the bag into the trunk and heading home. But during lunch, Sawada noticed his name holding steady among the top four as the winds inflated the scores throughout the afternoon.
“I was thinking there was no way,” Sawada said. “But once I finished we looked at the (scores) and was everyone’s having a hard time. I had a hard time as well. We just hung on the whole time and kept refreshing the page.”
When all 61 scores were posted, Sawada was indeed part of a three-way tie for fourth place and in a playoff for the final spot available through the qualifier.
Sawada pounced on his unexpected opportunity with a birdie on the first playoff hole to secure a tee time at Waialae Country Club for his second straight appearance in the Sony Open and fourth overall.
“I feel relieved, very relieved,” the Mililani graduate and former University of Hawaii golfer said after the playoff. “It was very stressful. The wind was just nuts all day. Just howling. Just made for a really tough day.”
Rico Hoey, a former All-American at USC and current Korn Ferry Tour member, shared medalist honors with Japan pro Tomoyo Ikemura at 4-under 68. Toru Nakajima, another Japan tour member, followed at 69.
That left Sawada, PGA Tour Champions member Tim Petrovic and Isaiah Salinda, who helped lead Stanford to the NCAA men’s championship last May, to play for the final berth.
Sawada outdrove his playing partners off Hoakalei’s 18th tee, then fired a 5-wood from about 240 yards out to the fringe just short of the green. After Salinda went into the water on his second shot and Petrovic found a bunker on his, Sawada needed just a short chip and a 3-foot putt to claim a spot in the PGA Tour’s first full-field event of 2020.
Sawada survived a playoff at Hoakalei for the second consecutive year and will tee off on Thursday at Waialae after a 2019 season that had him tantalizingly close to Korn Ferry Tour status yet questioning whether to call it a career.
He advanced to the final stage of Korn Ferry qualifying to earn his tour card. But without any guaranteed starts, he plans to move to California and try to play his way into tournaments through Monday qualifiers. His first attempt of the season provided validation for continuing to grind through the process.
“It’s been really tough,” the 29-year-old said, “because I’m getting really close to making it, but at the same time I’ve been doing it for so long it’s really wearing on me. Like ‘Why am I not doing it yet? Why am I not there?’ And I feel like I could be doing better.
“It’s been four years just trying to find my swing on my own, and that’s making it more difficult to continue golfing because I’m not hitting it very well. But I’m getting close.”
Hoey hit it better than most on Monday and will make his PGA Tour debut on Thursday with some help from Punahou graduate and former USC teammate Kyle Suppa.
“I was hitting a lot of greens and Kyle was helping me out on the greens a lot,” Hoey said of Suppa, who played in the 2015 Sony Open and caddied on Monday. “He read the putts really well today, so I just stuck with him all day.”
Sawada joins Tyler Ota, Parker McLachlin and Eric Dugas in the local contingent in the 144-player field. Ota won a qualifier in November to earn the exemption reserved for a local amateur. McLachlin is in on a sponsor’s exemption for his 10th Sony start and Dugas returns for his fifth as the Aloha Section PGA champion.
