Ashley Koga can’t recall a time when golf wasn’t a part of her life.
As she grew up with two older sisters immersed in the game, the golf course served as Koga’s first playground as she tagged along to practices and tournaments.
“My sandbox was the bunker,” she said. “I think my first toy was a plastic set of golf clubs.”
Now 16 and entering her junior year at Moanalua, Koga has traded toys for trophies and completed a five-day march through the Manoa Cup bracket on Friday to emerge as the youngest women’s champion in the tournament’s history.
Koga hadn’t competed in a match-play tournament before shooting a 75 in Monday’s qualifying round to earn the 14th seed in the 16-player bracket in the Hawaii State Golf Association’s most prestigious event. She admittedly surprised herself with wins over the next three days to reach the final and captured the tournament’s fifth women’s title with a 6-and-5 victory over ‘Iolani junior Nicole Tanoue on Friday at Oahu Country Club.
“I was really, really nervous,” Koga said of arriving at OCC for the final. “But after I got out here and warmed up, it’s no different than usual.”
The course has long been a comfortable place for Koga as well as her sisters, Eimi and Jennifer, who came up before her.
Eimi Koga won the 2011 high school state championship at Moanalua, competed in college at Washington and Hawaii and is now playing professionally in Japan. Jennifer Koga recently returned after earning Big Sky Conference Freshman and Player of the Year honors while helping Sacramento State reach the NCAA regionals this spring.
The Koga family moved to Japan when Eimi embarked on her professional career and returned to Hawaii two years ago, just before Ashley started high school at Moanalua.
“They’ve been a big motivation,” Ashley said. “We have the same coach, the same living style, so if they can do it, hopefully I can do it too.”
Jennifer Koga was the top seed in the bracket and advanced to the semifinals before falling to Tanoue on Thursday. So instead of playing against her sister, she shared in Ashley’s victory as her caddie on Friday.
“I’m happy she got this for herself and I was there to support her and be with her through the whole round today,” Jennifer Koga said. So I’m really happy for her and I think she deserved it.
“She did well with her putting, and particularly with her consistency with her shots. She was focused on getting pars, (and) birdies if she can.”
Ashley Koga rallied from 2 down with two holes to play before pulling out a win over Chloe Jang on Thursday and after shaking her early-morning nerves, Ashley went 4 up seven holes into Friday’s match with Tanoue.
She made the turn at 3 up and extended the lead with a 6-foot birdie putt on No. 10. She dropped another 6-footer for par on No. 12 to go 5 up and made the hike up the steep 13th fairway to finish off the win with a par.
“I feel like all my clubs were a little off today, but just tried to save it at the end and try to end with a decent score,” Koga said.
“The speed of these OCC greens are a little hard to adjust to but I got used to it a title bit more the further we went.”
While the Manoa Cup winner is usually tossed into the OCC pool, with social distancing, Koga jumped in herself, unaware of the tradition until the awards ceremony.
Tanoue was also dragged into the water after her run to the final in her Manoa Cup debut.
“I’ve been in the championship match twice in different tournaments. It’s a little disappointing I didn’t play how I wanted to, but it’s definitely something to learn on and just push forward with,” Tanoue said.
“Yesterday my putting came in handy. … Today, my hitting and putting struggled. I didn’t put myself in the right places, didn’t give myself opportunities to try to score. She made good putts (and) I put myself in bad positions.”
The HSGA added the women’s flight to the event in 2016 and Mari Nishiura won the inaugural title shortly after graduating from Mililani. Nishiura repeated in 2017, followed by Brittany Fan, who finished her Colorado career just before her 2018 victory. Danielle Ujimori won the 2019 title following her freshman year at Nevada.
