When Karissa Kilby was introduced among the participants in the Sony Open in Hawaii’s Pro-Junior Challenge, the Punahou junior could recall being one of the elementary school students on the other side of the ropes at Waialae Country Club.
In much the same way, PGA Tour pro Lanto Griffin related to the teens — still early in their ascent in the game — who qualified for Tuesday afternoon’s exhibition.
The duo combined to win the skills challenge, both perhaps leaving behind inspiration over the hour or so spent around Waialae’s 18th green.
“It’s good to see the young ones out here,” Kilby said. “I remember watching the older kids and I thought they were so cool and it’s crazy to think I’m playing in it.”
Playing alongside PGA Tour pros, if only for a few shots, was a payoff for the past year’s performance in Hawaii State Junior Golf Association events for Kilby, Roosevelt senior Kolbe Irei, Maryknoll junior Peter Jung, Punahou sophomore Marshall Kim Jr., and Jennifer Koga, a home-schooled senior.
“It was incredible,” Kim said. “I remember when I was like 10 years old I used to watch this event, and to be a part of it … I would never have expected it.
“Stepping on the first trick-shot challenge I never felt that nervous before.”
Kim played with Tour rookie Michael Gellerman and Irei played with James Hahn, the 2018 Sony Open runner-up. Koga partnered with Smylie Kaufman and Jung teamed with Punahou alum Parker McLachlin, himself a product of the local junior golf program.
“Growing up in Hawaii State Junior Golf Association, obviously this is extremely meaningful and it’s just fun to see the kids,” said McLachlin, who is entered in his 10th Sony Open this week.
“They’re on their way, they’ve made their way through the junior golf ranks and they’re entertaining the idea of playing professional golf. So for them to be on the 18th green with the grandstands and all the grandeur of professional golf, I think it’s an eye-opening moment for all of them. So it’s fun to be part of that with them.”
The event changed its format this year with skills competitions — rather than playing three holes as in previous editions — and the wind, as so often happens in golf, forced an early change in the game plan.
Trick-shot artist Dan Boever warmed up the crowd with his array of bending drives, then set up a “plywood challenge,” one of his specialties, for the players. The object was to smash soda cans mounted on a thin backboard 20 feet away. Keeping the board upright in heavy winds was the initial issue. Then, about midway through, a gust snapped the board in half.
But the show must go on, and so it did, and from closer range Gellerman and Kaufman each busted open a can on the now much shorter board.
Kilby won the closest-to-the-pin event for her team with a wedge from 60 yards out to 5 feet, 8 inches, and Griffin claimed the putting competition, a lengthy effort across the sloping 18th green to about 3 feet, with help from an even younger partner.
During his practice round earlier in the day, a 7-year-old walked with him up to the green and Griffin asked the youngster to help him read a putt. When he spotted the boy in the stands later in the afternoon, Griffin beckoned him down to the green.
“He started doing AimPoint. It’s a fairly complicated way to read greens, which I never even learned,” said Griffin, who won the Houston Open in October and opened 2020 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions last week on Maui. “I was just really impressed that he even knew what AimPoint was, much less what to do. I saw him up there (in the grandstands), so I figured if we had to putt, might as well bring him down, and we ended up winning.”
Kilby progressed from watching the event to caddying last year and played her way into the field in a season that helped secure her next step in her golf career, having recently committed to Florida International.
“That’s honestly everything I asked for,” she said. “The whole goal when I started golf was to help me get a good college education. … I’m really grateful golf has opened that door for me.”
