Seniors get their shot at a golf skills competition when the Aloha Golf Challenge opens Saturday at Maui Lani.
The Challenge also has competitions scheduled for Kauai (June 3 at Puakea), the Big Island (Hualalai June 10) and Oahu (Olomana June 30).
Format is similar to juniors’ Drive, Chip and Putt competitions, but the Challenge is open only to seniors 55 and older with a valid GHIN Handicap Index. There are Makule (up to 7.6 index), Kupuna (7.7-20.0) and Wahine (up to 40.0) divisions.
Entry fee is $25. Entry forms are available at ASPGA.com. For more information, contact Aloha Section PGA President Lance Taketa at 808-987-2971 or lancetaketa@hotmail.com.
Okino on hot streak in Japan
Punahou alum Cyd Okino made her fourth cut in five starts on the Japan LPGA’s Step-Up Tour last week. Okino tied for 32nd, winning $1,220 at the Twin Fields Ladies Tournament Saturday in Ishikawa.
Okino is playing the Pro Test Qualifier this week, an early qualifying stage for the regular Japan LPGA Tour. She was in second after an opening-round 69 Tuesday.
Stephanie Kono, another Punahou graduate, won $1,150 in her last start on the Symetra Tour — the LPGA Tour’s version of Japan’s Step-Up. Kono tied for 42nd at the Self Regional Healthcare Foundation Classic in Greenwood, S.C., two weeks ago.
She has won $6,242 in four starts and is 39th on the money list. Hawaii’s Britney Yada and Nicole Sakamoto missed the cut in South Carolina.
TODAY’S TIP: MASTER STROKES
Great swings are powerful and repetitive. They are controlled by the large muscles, not the arms and hands. A simple key to help utilize the body when executing your backswing is to make sure you consciously turn your back to the target. You want to coil your upper body as fully as you can so that at the top, your shoulder blades point directly at the target. It’s OK if you can’t turn this far, as long as you turn as fully as you can while maintaining your balance. Another plus is that it’s almost impossible to make a jerky, fast backswing while thinking of turning your back fully to the target.
— Jim McLean, owner of Jim McLean Golf School, author of the best-selling books “The Slot Swing” and “The 8-Step Swing”
Spare for Change to host tourney
Spare for Change will host its second HNU-Energy Bad Pants Open tournament June 10 at Maui Nui. The event will help raise funds for Spare for Change office space, a club building and club storage for the more than 12,000 clubs the group distributes free of charge.
The goal of the nonprofit group is to help grow the game by giving recycled clubs to new players of all ages.
The tournament has a 1 p.m. shotgun start and scramble format. Cost is $135 per person, with four-person teams. That includes lunch from Round Table Pizza, dinner at Kono’s on the Green and prizes.
Spare for Change is based in Kihei and was founded by Aloha Section PGA pro David Havens. For more information and tournament entry forms, contact him at 808-298-8012 or spareforchange@gmail.com, or visit spareforchange.org.
Komoto wins in NCAA final
Northwestern senior and Punahou graduate Kacie Komoto won the final match of her collegiate career, but Arizona State claimed its eighth NCAA women’s golf championship with a 3-1-1 victory over the Wildcats on Wednesday in Sugar Grove, Ill.
Komoto began the day by rallying from 3 down with three holes to play in her rain-delayed semifinal match against USC’s Muni He before falling the 19th hole. But the top-seeded Wildcats edged the Trojans 3-2 to advance to the final at Rich Harvest Farms Golf Club.
Komoto then defeated ASU’s Sofia Zeeb 3 and 1 to give Northwestern its lone point of the championship match.
Stephanie Kono, another Punahou graduate, remains the last golfer from Hawaii to play for a national champion when she helped UCLA claim the 2011 title.
