PGA of America wanted to celebrate its centennial with a focus on each of its 41 sections. Aloha Section PGA wanted to focus on its distinct gifts.

In the Rego family, Aloha Section executive director Wes Wailehua saw a vivid way to detail what makes Hawaii special. Soft-spoken, humble, hard-working, Art, Darrell and Brenda Rego are part of an only-in-Hawaii golf story born in the pineapple fields of Kunia.

Their father, Arthur, was personnel director for Del Monte, and a pretty good golfer. He encouraged all his kids to play at nearby Hawaii Country Club, a semi-private, semi-spartan facility.

In the summer, he dropped them off in the morning and picked them up after work. Other times they golfed with him after work, or hitchhiked or rode their bikes through the cane fields, with their few clubs tied to the side.

Make that their club.

“I had one club,” recalls Brenda. “We would hit it and run after it and see who could get to the green fastest. Then we’d go to the next hole.”

Cross-training worked. With the help of HCC members and guys like Red Aldrick, Jimmy Ukauka, Guinea Kop and Ron Castillo, they were given enough wisdom and clubs to make a “set.” The Regos often walked 36 holes with members, picking up tips on the way up HCC’s steep slopes.

“A lot of old-timers at HCC would take us under their wing,” Art said. “We’d play with them. You could hear us all over the golf course.”

They earned money by finding balls, picking them up on the range and working in the shop.

“In the summer we’d go around the edges of the course and find balls and sell them for 10 cents apiece for lunch money,” Darrell recalled. “Then we’d hang out and hit balls. My first salary job was washing carts and picking balls off the range.”

All the siblings are now Aloha Section members, working at neighbor island courses and focused on bringing the game to the next generation, as folks in Kunia did for them back in the day.

The PGA of America Hawaii spotlight that ran on Golf Channel’s “Morning Drive” last month featured the Regos at the section’s recent Hawaii Junior Golf Day, where they were a big part of introducing the game to 720 kids at 12 facilities.

“My thing is it’s about kids, not about me,” says Art, the oldest. “Kids make the game. Some of their comments are so funny. I think that’s more important than anything else. It’s not about what I accomplish or awards. That doesn’t mean as much as seeing kids after they graduate. A lot of our former junior golfers are lawyers and dentists and they are so happy they still play golf.

“All of us feel the same way. In that sense, our family was so blessed to learn the game and we feel like this is our chance to give back a little. We are more than blessed.”

Brenda is head pro at Wailea’s Blue Course and coached the Maui High girls at this week’s David S. Ishii State High School Championships on Kauai. After a college career highlighted by a victory at the Southern Intercollegiate— over Nancy Lopez, Betsy King and Beth Daniel — she played on the LPGA tour for a few years in the early 1980s, then officiated mini-tour events.

She came home to work for Art at Mililani and then Waiehu, before going to Wailea in 1998. Art, who beat Hawaii Golf Hall of Famer Guinea Kop to win a PGA Match Play Championship back in the early ’70s, also worked at Waialae and had the concession at Ala Wai, West Loch and Ewa Villages. He now runs the shops at Waiehu and Wailua and coaches the Maui boys.

Darrell has been Wailua’s head pro for two years, after stints at Barbers Point, Ala Wai, Fort Shafter, Leilehua, Kalakaua and Ironwoods on Molokai, for the past 20 years. Until recently, he juggled his work at Wailua and Ironwoods, where he was head pro, greens superintendent, maintenance, mower and pretty much everything in between.

“All our jobs are golf-related,” Darrell says. “It’s not that we couldn’t do anything else, we just felt so comfortable.”

All had success as players, but the most talented sibling was Clyde, who died of a heart attack in 2004, at 46. He was the first amateur to win the JAL Rainbow Open, captured the Manoa Cup the next year (1978) and played on the PGA Tour in 1982 and ’83. Clyde was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2012.

“He was better than all of us, had a lot of talent,” Brenda says. “When he was inducted someone said Tiger Woods thought he hit the first stinger with his 3-wood or 2-iron, but Clyde Rego hit the first stinger, low and solid.”

The PGA of America’s primary goal in this Centennial celebration is to “celebrate the 28,000 men and women PGA Professionals that comprise the PGA of America.” There are 231 PGA members and apprentices in Hawaii, who work at 100 facilities.

Wailehua calls the three Rego members “a true Cinderella story.”

“It’s about how a plantation family growing up on Oahu really represents who we are,” he says, “and the spirit of aloha and how we love to give back to our community and the people who visit our islands.”

No matter what their clubs look like.