Patience is essential to a serious Lego builder.
Kate Nakaoka loves her Lego. Always has. But that same patience wasn’t always in surplus as she learned about this ultimate mind game known as golf pe— spelled flog backward for a reason.
“I would say putting was the weakest part of my game for the longest time,” said Nakaoka, a seven-time Hawaii State Junior Golf Association Player of the Year.
She came into the national spotlight in 2018, becoming the first qualifier from Hawaii to compete in the national Drive, Chip & Putt championships at Augusta National Golf Club. In ’21, as an eighth grader, Nakaoka finished regulation play tied in first place at the IMG Junior World Championships at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego. She lost in the playoff to take runner-up honors.
Last year, Nakaoka placed first in regulation at the Notah Begay III national championships (Kinder, La.), and again finished as runner-up.
A 4.0 grade-point average certainly helped open more eyes across the nation. Nakaoka committed to Oregon State in November. One way or another, a future at college paved by academic or athletic scholarship was destined to be her path.
“I like designing things. I like bridges. I haven’t learned about the metals involved, but I think that’ll come later if I study this,” she said. “I’m also thinking about business.”
Golf brings out something that isn’t automatic for scholars. Putting is a mind-bender matched by few spotlight moments in sports. She and younger sister Mia spent thousands of hours in the yard. Many hours more were enjoyed by Mia, two years younger than Kate.
“My dad built a putting green for us when we were in middle school,” Nakaoka said. “We would have family competitions. My sister would always win. I learned how important putting is to my game,” said Nakaoka, who finally knuckled down on it during junior year. “I hated it because of how difficult it was and how boring it was.”
The sisters’ in-house competition has been real. Tagging along with their golf-loving father, Brent, the sisters led a life largely in the outdoors. Mililani and Leilehua golf courses were their homes away from home. Brent Nakaoka played baseball at Mililani, but his first try at golf came when he was 12. It was a brief experience.
“I tried Junior Golf and I didn’t like it. The clubs I was using was a set that my dad borrowed from my auntie. They were teal and I didn’t want to use ladies’ clubs,” he recalled.
Golf was a treasure for both sides of the family. Brent’s father picked up the game later in life, long after he stopped playing tennis. Brent was also a bowler at Mililani, with a high score of “240-something,” he said.
Tatum Nakaoka’s family roots are in Hilo. Her grandfather, Yoshikazu Iko, loved the game. Her aunt, Lynette Iko, and father, Arthur Iko, grew up on Oahu with the same attachment to the game.
“My dad would go to Makalena,” said Tatum, who had no interest in playing. “We went down to the range a few times with him. The clubs were heavy for me. The ball didn’t go far.”
Brent Nakaoka was 21 when he graduated from Santa Clara and picked up golf.
“I didn’t think anything of Brent liking golf,” Tatum recalled. “We would go to the driving range.”
Years later, their two daughters are a force on the links. Kate currently has the top three-score average in the OIA at 66.33, while Mia ranks fifth at 74.33. In all, five Trojans are among the top eight in the league. Mariko Yonemura is third (71.67), Kieran Florino is seventh (74.67) and Kady Matsumoto is eighth (75.33).
The OIA’s top 32 golfers qualify for states.
Mililani is a definite contender at the OIA championships, which conclude today, and the HHSAA tournament. Nakaoka isn’t surprised.
“Since last year, my teammates have definitely been working hard. Their games have improved a lot, a lot more consistent. Low 70s, high 60s. We practice three to four times a week. A lot of our girls are seniors this year and they wanted to do better at OIAs and states,” Nakaoka said. “That’s a big drive for them, and they love practicing. There’s a really good balance of working hard and focusing, and having fun.”
Last year, the Lady Trojans were runners-up in the team standings, trailing Punahou by 20 strokes.
Kate Nakaoka placed sixth in the HHSAA state championships as a freshman and third as a sophomore. Last year, bouncing between the OIA championships and the U.S. Women’s Open qualifier on Maui, she and dozens of other contenders struggled at the David Ishii/HHSAA State Championships. Fickle winds of the Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course played a major role on day one. Nakaoka rallied hard to eke out a 17th-place finish.
Quietly, she is hungry for a shot at an HHSAA title when the 2025 state championships tee off on April 29 at Mauna Lani Resort in Waikoloa. First-year Mililani coach Traci Kashiwabara was the girls coach at Leilehua, where she is a P.E. teacher. The Mules don’t have a girls golfer this year, and she took the plunge, applied to coach at Mililani and was hired.
“I knew about her when she won Drive, Chip & Putt as a kid. She’s always had a solid swing. That’s what struck me — that and her scores as a freshman,” Kashiwabara said. “She has great heart, grit and a love for the game. That’s pretty special about her.
Kashiwabara noted that Nakaoka’s drive has improved in a big way.
“Now she’s 260-plus (yards),” she said.
Nakaoka plays that down.
“I think it’s 250, maybe 260 on a good day. For a while, my swing speed goal was to get to 95 mph, and I reached that a month ago. I was stuck at 90 for the longest time,” she said.
The distance is not luck. She spent years with sister Mia at DNA Active Rehab and Performance, where their father was a regular client. The sisters were still in elementary school when they started strength workouts.
“It was fun. (Bryce Amoy) used to make us do exercises when my dad was working out. I used to like being with my dad,” she said. “Dead lifting helped me. It built up my leg strength to hit the ball farther. Around my sophomore or junior year, that was an important time during recruiting. I was playing in mainland tournaments, trying to compete with girls who are bigger and taller than me.”
There were trips along the way. Many, many, many flights to courses across North America and beyond: Canada, Australia, California, Washington, Arizona, Texas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia.
The winning didn’t come too quickly or slowly.
“I think she was 10 when we went to San Diego,” Tatum Nakaoka recalled. “You have no expectations. It was a fun trip. We went again the next year and she did a little better. When she started winning (locally), I was kind of surprised to have a kid in sports because I wasn’t an athlete. It was exciting.”
Tatum Nakaoka works for Hawaiian Airlines, as do some parents of student-athletes who defray the heavy costs of mainland travel for competition.
For the Nakaoka ohana, traveling as normal customers was always priority rather than the stress of stand-by for domestic flights.
“One of our favorite things is going to Disneyland as a family,” Brent Nakaoka said.
When Kate started high school and enjoyed her buoyant circle of friends, mom noticed a decline in her standards on the course.
“Freshman year, she got a little more interested in her social life and she had to balance the two. I said, you don’t have to keep golfing, but travel costs money and you have to put the work in.”
To her credit, Kate grasped her mother’s advice.
“It was mostly during freshman year. I got that talk a lot,” she said. “I told her, you wouldn’t know. You don’t play golf. But she was right.”
Tatum trusted her instincts. Wisdom.
“The tone and delivery of the message is important,” she said. “I like to see both of my kids being happy. When they’re playing well, it makes me happy when they’re happy. It’s so hard because you can’t always play well. They have so much fun playing the game and being with their friends. They have a good group behind them. Their coaches. Their friends’ parents.”
It all went by in a blur, one tee at a time.
“She is really enjoying her senior year. She shows up to practice and seems to really be enjoying her year overall, which is what I want,” Tatum said.
One of the peak moments was senior prom on Saturday.
“All the preparation, I was preparing for my prom for a couple of months, at least,” Kate Nakaoka said. “Which is more than it should’ve been.”
Prom season is also the final stretch of high school for Nakaoka and her classmates.
“It’s just that it’s my last year and I’m never going to be on the same team playing with the same girls again,” she said. “I want to make the most of it and have as much fun as I can.”
The connection between Lego and one of her other big interests, Star Wars, made her an even bigger fan of Lego.
“I realized that they have Star Wars Lego sets. My dad is also a Star Wars fan,” she said. “I just like following the instructions and doing what it tells me to do.”
In a few months, Nakaoka boards her flight to college. She won’t have Mia around to butt heads with anymore.
“My competitiveness is from having a younger sister. She always wanted to beat me and I always had to make sure she wouldn’t beat me,” Nakaoka said. “Without her, I definitely would’ve been a different person.”
Kate Nakaoka
Mililani golf • Senior
Top 3 Lego models
1. Death Star
2. Millennium Falcon
3. X-Wing
Favorite Star Wars movie: “Revenge of the Sith”
Top 3 movies/shows
1. “Gilmore Girls.” My mom got me into it. I was in eighth grade. I’ve seen it twice. It has a very cozy feeling. We went to Universal Studios where they have the set.”
2. “The Life List”
3. “The Notebook.” “I’ve seen this four or five times. My favorite scene is the rain scene in the boat.”
Top 3 foods/drinks
1. Dr Pepper
2.Garlic cream fettuccine with chicken (CPK)
3. Spicy ahi rolls (7-Eleven)
Top 3 homemade food
1. Dad’s steak
2. Dad’s chicken piccata
3. Pizza. “We make homemade pepperoni pizza.”
Top 3 music artists/favorite song
1. Megan Moroney — “Third Time’s the Charm”
2. Gracie Abrams — “Risk”
3. Taylor Swift — “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”
Favorite athlete/team: Nelly Korda, professional golfer
“I really like the way she carries and her swing. I like her attitude on the golf course. You can’t tell when she’s upset. She doesn’t let her emotions get the best of her.”
Funniest teammate: Kieran Florino
“She’s really out of pocket sometimes. She’s so much fun on the golf course. She makes everyone smile with her little jokes.”
Smartest teammate: Mariko Yonemura
“She’s taking a lot of AP classes. She helps me sometimes.”
GPA: 4.0
Homework time frame: “I usually wait until I get home. Then I start my homework around 8- or 9-ish.”
Favorite teacher: Mrs. Lauren Ching
“She’s my sophomore math teacher, honors Algebra II. She explains everything really well. I was able to get a good grasp and understanding of everything. I go to lunch in her classroom. Six of us.”
Favorite class: Architecture
Favorite motto: Everything happens for a reason.
“I feel like once something happens you can’t really change it. You can’t complain about it. If you get stuck on it, you can’t get past it.”
New life skill: Driving
“I got my license around Thanksgiving of junior year. I drive my sister and I to the golf course for practice.”
Bucket list: Go to all 50 states
“We’ve been to about 25 states so far. It would be good to go to the rest of them even though there’s nothing to do there.”
Time machine: When and where would you travel?
“Twenty years into the future to see what my life is like.”
Youth sports: Soccer and gymnastics
If you could go back in time, what would you tell your younger self?
“I would tell my younger self to practice more. I used to hate going to the driving range sometimes, but if I’d gone to the range and the golf course more. I would’ve been better.”
Shoutouts
“Thank you to my teammates for making my high school golf journey so much fun. Thank you to Traci Kashiwabara for coaching our team and to Ryan Nagata for helping me make adjustments to my swing. Also, thank you to Dana Fong-Reyes at Core Sports and Bryce Amoy at DNA for helping me with strength training to get me in shape for tournaments.”
