What happened to our spark plug that took the Solheim Cup by storm, firing up the U.S. team and the fans, with her smile and verve? Every golf writer had something to say about Michelle Wie’s coming out party. I did.  The big question was, could she continue to dominate on the LPGA Tour and finally win.


You know she didn’t. She’ll still be playing a few more events this year but she is back at Stanford, back in school and we’re back to waiting for her first win.

What happened? It’s just not her time yet. She is still learning how to be an individual player in a very individual, sometimes lonely, sport.

P&G BEAUTY NW ARKANSAS CHAMPIONSHIP


“It was frustrating. I just never felt like I had enough energy the whole week.”

That is how Michelle Wie summed up her performance at the rain drenched Arkansas event. Not difficult to understand why. After the thrilling experience of the Solheim Cup, the adrenalin filled days and nights or preparation and performance, most of us wouldn’t have had much left in reserve. But she gutted it out, finishing the three-day tournament tied for 27th place. Her performance earned her $14,015. This season, Wie has earned $611,212, more than any other professional golfer on the Tours.

Her best round was on Friday. She birdied the first three holes and two of her last four to finish with a 2-under 69. But she was never a serious contender. Wie putted 97 times during the tournament and only scored two birdies. She told reporters she had to grind through the final round, made it tougher for herself, but she knows what she needs to work on, “so hopefully the next tournament will be a lot better.”

And once again, the writers chronicled her performance, including her six top-10 finishes, with the caveat that she “has yet to win a tournament”.

The winner at the P&G Beauty NW Arkansas Championship?


WINNING WILL COME


The LPGA Tour members are friends.  That became abundantly clear during the Solheim Cup and I see it in all of the exchanges on the social network sites like Twitter.

Friends off, and fierce competitors, on the golf course. On the course, that competition amongst “friends” becomes the fuel that fires their determination to stay the course and come out on top; to win the event, with only the voice inside your head cheering you on to victory or deriding you into defeat.

Michelle Wie is a great team player. She always has been a great team player. Her team has been her family. They’ve been with her through every one of her events since she started competing seriously as a 10 year old. Her team, her family, her coach and then soon, her advisors, and her sponsors and sometimes her opponents, have been her cheering section. She has never been without her team. People wanted Michelle to succeed, to defy the odds, to become the youngest, the first, the phenom.

That part of her career thankfully is behind her. It was fun and exhilarating but now the heart of her career will be formed. Wie obviously has the talent, the ability, the determination, and the will, to be on the LPGA Tour with the best of the best. Now it’s just a matter of when she will win. As a student, playing “part time” on the tour, isn’t the same as making the commitment so many young women have made to pursue their career.
I’m not saying Wie should leave college. No. What I am saying is, don’t expect her to be a Stanford student and the savior of the LPGA Tour.

LPGA TOUR LOSING MORE SPONSORS

The latest marquee LPGA sponsor to leave is Anheuser-Busch. It will not renew the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill after 7 years.

So far the LPGA only has “close to” 20 events confirmed for 2010. In 2007, the LPGA Tour had 34 events. 27 events in 2009. They are still talking with more potential sponsors.

It isn’t fair to put the burden of the success of the LPGA Tour on the shoulders of one person. But at this point in time, with fewer sponsors renewing their contracts, it’s just about come to that.


American television viewers, and consequently U.S. based companies who put up the money to pay the prizes, want to know the people winning the Tour events. A lot has been written about the lack of communication coming from within the LPGA Tour communications department. Much of it isn’t very flattering and I’ve been one of the detractors. I can’t understand why the LPGA doesn’t go out of its way to make its players interesting to the U.S. fan base. It’s that fan base that must be appealed to if the LPGA Tour is going to be successful. And the world of women golfers ultimately want to make it on the LPGA Tour in the U.S. So there is your Catch 22.

The top female golfers on the planet want to play, win, and dominate on the LPGA Tour in the United States.
The top female players on the LPGA Tour aren’t necessarily from the United States. But the money funding the LPGA Tour comes from companies making their investment in the United States. Those companies want to reach their customers in the United States. That means generating some buzz about the events, no the PLAYERS performing in the events played.
But the customer isn’t getting excited.

The customer, the average fan, the casual fan from wench the real profits come from, barely knows anything about the winners on the LPGA Tour right now.

The U.S. fan knows Paula Creamer and Lorena Ochoa and Morgan Pressel. The U.S. fan knows European players like Suzanne Petterson and Laura Davies.  The U.S. fan knows Michelle Wie. They know Se Ri Pak. But they don’t know most of the 47 Korean golfers, often in contention and winning, on the LPGA Tour today.

So either Wie and known company have to start winning or, more to the point,  the LPGA Tour has to start making an effort to make the many Kim’s and Park’s come alive for us to befriend and root for.

There is one player whose name I’m not going to look up, just to make a point.
Her father raised her, after her mother died in an accident, I think.
I remember reading something about all of the sacrifices this man made to help his daughter become the great golfer she is. I thought to myself, after reading a short article about this golfer, “Wow, I would really like to get to know this young lady and support her efforts to become a great player on the Tour.” But her name didn’t stick in my mind. It’s not that I’m callous. The many new Korean stars have names that are from a language I don’t speak. Someone has to translate for me. That someone has to be from the LPGA Tour, who then needs to infuse that excitement into the television announcers and the writers who cover the Tour.

Don’t tell me who didn’t win, that the Americans aren’t winning “their” own Tour. Tell me something interesting about the person who did, wherever they hail from.

HAWAII’S INCOMING LPGA STARS

Kauai’s Lehua Wise is going to the LPGA’s Final Qualifying tournament in December played at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida. She easily made it through the first phase of qualifying by finishing 3rd in the California sectional at Mission Hills Country Club in Palm Springs, California. 30 players made it into the final round from this qualifier, including Sacred Hearts Academy graduate Ayaka Kaneko. Kaneko plans to turn pro just before final qualifying. Wise has been playing on the Duramed Futures Tour. She told the Honolulu Advertiser columnist Bill Kwon, “I’ve grown a lot, especially the last three months alone, as a player and in just believing that I can be out there on the LPGA Tour. The Futures Tour allows you to grow. It really is a development tour. I’ve learned a lot about myself and as a golfer.”
Wise played in all 17 Duramed Futures events. Wise graduated with a degree in marketing and golf management from New Mexico State.

Hawaii’s Mari Chun and Shayna Miyajima will try again to get into the final qualifying in December. Chun and Miyajima missed out at the first sectional but they get one more shot and we’ll know whether they’ve made it when you’re reading this.

POPS AND SUNSHINE

I’d like to recommend a very good book about “life on the Futures” tour. It’s a novel written by a gentleman who frequently caddies for the young women trying to earn their LPGA card. It’s called “Pops and Sunshine” written by Dave Andrews. It’s a very good novel. Andrews self published his first work and would love to develop it into a movie. Would be great to base it in Hawaii.

You can find the book at http://popsandsunshine.com/

ANOTHER TOP KOREAN WINS IN U.S. COMPETITION


Another great moment in golf for our young players. Byeong-Hun An of Korea is the 2009 U.S. Amateur champion, the youngest winner in championship history. He is also the second Korean-born U.S. Amateur champion in a row. He follows Danny Lee. Last year Lee knock Tiger Woods out of the record books, becoming the then youngest player to win the USGA’s oldest championship.
Byeong-Hun An, a senior at Florida’s Bradenton Prep defeated 22-year-old Ben Martin of Greenwood, South Carolina, 7 and 5, in the 36-hole final match at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

PHIL WINS THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP AND TIGER WINS THE CUP


Coming in second for the 4th time in a Tour Championship, the most of any other PGA Tour player, Tiger Woods only managed a second place finish in the 2009 Tour Championship presented by Coca Cola but that was still good enough for him to win the $10 million 2009 FedEx Cup for the second time in it’s 3 year history.


Who won the Tour Championship? Phil Mickleson who came into the final event of this year’s race for the FedEx Cup seeded 16th.  All of a sudden, after hitting a beautiful left to right shot, from the dirt rough, across two bunkers and straight onto the green, Mickleson took command of the final round and won the tournament. Way to go Phil.   

With the final points, Mickleson also jumped into second place in the FedEx Cup points.
Steve Stricker, who found himself with a plugged ball that halted his run for the win, came in third place in the race for the FedEx Cup. Jim Furyk took fourth and Sean O’Hair fifth.

It’s been an amazing season for Tiger Woods.
After losing in the first round of Match Play in his first outing on his new knee, a lot of people wondered if Woods was ready for competition on his rehabbed knee.

Well he managed to win 6 of the last 17 events played. Certainly didn’t win a major. Didn’t make the cut in one, the British Open, where we almost had a Champions Tour player win the Open. There were three first time winners and two playoffs in the majors but no trophy for Woods.

Still it’s been an amazing year.  Woods’ scoring average is below 69 for the 10th time in his career. Maybe he’ll be the Comeback Player of the Year and the Player of the Year.

Kenny Perry, who was leading after 54 holes, has such an incredible year. His final round just went into the dumper.


Sean O’Hair came so close to taking over the lead, but lost it on the back 9, or the last 6 holes.

What does Woods plan to do in the off-season, after the Presidents Cup in San Francisco?

Woods says first of all, he’s got several more events to play in, one in Asia and one in Australia and the one he is hosting. But once the off-season begins, Woods says he is looking forward to doing some more work with Hank Haney. He is playing consistently but he is also now able to do a lot more in the way of shot shaping because his leg is up to the task. Before the ACL surgery, his left leg was limiting his ability. That’s fairly scary. He says he is really feeling the stability of the leg. He’s feeling “explosive” again. As they say in Kahuku, “be afraid, be very, very afraid.”

Mickleson says the long-term outlook for both his wife and his mother is very good even though their day-to-day recovery from breast cancer is a difficult struggle.

Mickleson says he is looking forward to 2010, with the work he is doing with Butch Harmon, Dave Stockton and Dave Pelz.  His drives are getting longer and his putting is on target. That’s also fairly scary and exciting too.

BARBERS POINT INVITATIONAL

Congratulations to T.J. Kua, UH golf team member, for his excellent play at the Barbers Point Invitational.
I’m looking forward to our conversation on Saturday, October 3rd on “The Golf Club”.
Hope you’ll tune in too.
We’re doing our 11th anniversary celebration with a flyaway to Las Vegas. The winner will be flown to Las Vegas via Hawaiian Airlines. Hawaiian Airline is celebrating its 80 anniversary this year.
And the winner will stay four nights in the Directors Suite at the $100 million dollar renovated Las Vegas Hilton.  
Plus win a round for 4 at the Las Vegas Country Club.
For more information on the contest, check out http://www.radiogolfclub.  

ALOHA PGA PROFESSIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP/SENIOR PGA PROFESSIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP & STROKE PLAY CHAMPIONSHIP

The third major championship of the Hawaii 2009 season was held at the Honolulu Country Club at the end of September with 38 island professionals competing from around the state. But you could say the Big Island, and the Hilo Municipal in particular, walked away the winner.

First round leader Kevin Hayashi of Hilo’s Muni won in a playoff with Kevin Carll of Turtle Bay Golf. Hayashi pulled out the win with a long birdie putt on the first playoff hole to win the SPC/Stroke Play title and a spot in the 2010 Sony Open in Hawaii.

Last year’s Senior Player of the Year, Lance Taketa of Hilo Municipal, maintained his first round lead and captured the Senior SPC title with his 5 under par 135.  (Hayashi went into the playoff with Karll at 3 under 137.) Tied for second place six shots behind Taketa, Mark Morrison of Swing & Play and Dugal Milne of Makena Golf Course.  All three go on to the Senior PGA Professional National Championship late this month at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

Hayashi and John Lynch of GolfTEC will be representing the Aloha Section in the 43rd PGA Professional National Championship in June of next year at French Lick, Indiana.
This is the 6th time for Hayashi. The fourth time for Lynch.  Karll wasn’t eligible because he didn’t get his application in on time.

GETTING READY FOR USA HAWAII-JAPAN CUP


The Hawaii State Junior Golf Association held its final two “qualifiers” for the third annual USA Hawaii-Japan Junior Cup being held at the Waikoloa King’s Course November 5 – 8 on the Big Island. The players win their place on the Hawaii team by earning points throughout the year, culminating with the Mixed Team Championship at Poipu Bay Golf Course on Kauai, September 5-6 and the Match Play Championship at the Kaanapali Royal Course on Maui September 26 – 27.  

Both the Mixed Team Championship and the Match Play Championship help prepare Hawaii junior golfers prepare to compete in a similar Ryder Cup format being played against the top junior golfers from Japan.

During the Mixed Team Championship, each two-person team had one boy and one girl from the 13 – 18 age divisions.  The first round was played using Four-Ball Stroke Play and the second round using Foursome Stroke Play.  In the Match Play Championship, 48 players were seeded, and played into the semi-finals with few surprises. Most of the top seeded players went into the final round. The exception was the upset of the 2nd seed Kalena Preus by 7th seeded Pono Tokioka, who then lost to 3rd seed Andrew Paisley 1up.
A big mahalo to Poipu Bay Golf Course for hosting this year’s Mixed Team Championship and Ka’anapali for hosting the Match Play Championship!

USGA STATE TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS


Georgia may have won the 2009 USGA Women’s State Team Championship but Hawaii surprised them all with the 3rd place finish our team pulled off.  Our team was Cyd Okino, Kacie Komoto and Xyra Suyetsugu, the youngest in the field. Thanks to the 73 from Suyetsugu and a second straight 74 from Komoto, the youngest on our team, Hawaii broke through to take 3rd place.


As Suyetsugu said, “We’ll take that. We came into this tournament not expecting anything. We were just trying to beat our goal, which was 10th. We are happy to be where we are.”


Xyra Suyetsugu also provided us with this picture of the house she wished they had stayed in all week but someone said it was really Amanda Blumenherst’s place. Oh well.


In the USGA Men’s State Team Championship, Hawaii also field the youngest team. Ryan Perez, David Saka and Lorens Chan tied for 34th in the 8th USGA Men’s State Team Championship played at The Country Club of St. Albans in St. Louis. Pennsylvania won the title with a team total 9 under.

PRESIDENTS CUP


Probably by the time you are reading this, the Presidents Cup is happening in San Francisco at the Harding Park Golf Course.

You could have been there but hey, maybe next time.  There’s a cruise happening right now that would have taken you down the coast from Vancouver with a stop in San Francisco for a practice day at the Presidents Cup and an overnight in the city by the bay. Next time.

http://www.pgatour.com/2009/tournaments/presidentscup/07/01/couples.blog/index.html

US WINS WALKER CUP


It’s the Solheim Cup for the guys. It’s the Walker Cup but since we didn’t have any Hawaii players on the team, we didn’t hear much about it locally. The U.S team won it very nicely. The final score was 16 ½ to 9 ½, the U.S over Great Britain and Ireland.

"We're certainly very disappointed," Great Britain and Ireland captain Colin Dalgleish said. "We really did believe we had a strong team. I feel the 10 players we had are better players and played better than the result would suggest, which is very frustrating for everybody involved."


"To me," U.S captain Buddy Marucci said, "I don't know if there's anything greater in golf for a person like myself than to captain the team and to do it at home, then to have 10 great guys and then to win, I don't know that there's another chapter in the story. It's pretty much over."

There was a lot of attention paid to one team member in particular. His name is Rickie Fowler. Fowler would have turned professional months ago but the Walker Cup meant more to him.  And he made it count. Fowler went 4-0 in his matches, extending his international amateur competition to 34-7-1. Fowler was the only freshman to win the Ben Hogan Award and earned all-American status in each of his two seasons at Oklahoma State. He is a professional now, playing on the Nationwide Tour.

ONE ASIA TOUR

The One Asia Tour is alive and well.

This is the Korea Open. Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa and Ireland’s Rory McIlroy both played but they didn’t walk away soaked in champagne. That honor went to Bang Sang-Moon of South Korea.


HAWAII STATE JUNIOR GOLF ASSOCIATION
TURTLE BAY JUNOR CLASSIC/PUAKEA ALL AGES KAUAI JR TOUR

I wasn’t there so I can’t give you the details of how each round was played, or even the highlights of the winning rounds, but I do have some photos taken by the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association folks and the people at the courses where the junior golfers played.

As summer action winds down, 68 junior golfers turned out for the HSJGA Turtle Bay Junior Classic in September, representing ages 11-12 Girls and Boys, 13-14 Girls and Boys, and 15-18 Girls and Boys.


On Kauai, at Puakea, it was the:
HSJGA All Ages Kauai Junior Tour Series at Puakea Golf Course
 




PATRIOT DAY

More than 4,480 PGA-staffed facilities, 60 of them in Hawaii, participated in the third annual Patriot Golf Day® in 2008. Golfers nationwide are asked to donate a minimum of $1 to benefit the Folds of Honor Foundation® to provide post secondary educational scholarships for children and spouses of military service men and women killed or disabled while serving our great nation. Patriot Golf Day has raised more than $3 million dollars in the past two years.
PGA Professional Dan Rooney an F-16 fighter pilot in the Oklahoma Air National Guard, is the founder of the Folds of Honor Foundation. Major Rooney, call sign Noonan, has served three tours in Iraq. "We have lost more than 4,000 soldiers. They have given the ultimate sacrifice. America can come together in the spirit of golf and have a dramatic impact. We have an opportunity to make a difference for the families who have made the ultimate sacrifice."  If you’d like more information, check out http://foldsofhonor.com for more information.
And that’s a wrap for this month!

I hope you’ll join me Saturday morning for “The Golf Club” radio show on KONI FM on Maui, KPUA AM in Hilo, KUMU AM on Oahu and KTOH on Kauai from 7 AM till 8:30 AM. It’s called “The Golf Club” because I think of it as a clubhouse full of folks talking and listening about the game that brings us all together.

Congrats to Debra Chun who loves to play golf at Mid Pacific Country Club. She is celebrating another year at Avance Salon on Kapiolani Boulevard. If you’re looking for a haircut or the full salon experience with wonderful pedicures, a fabulous new hair “look”, Avance is for you. Lots of free, covered parking, 9 stylists including a long hair specialist, Sharon Namahoe. Avance.

In the meantime, thank you for your Mana and may you hit the sweet spot every time.

Aloha,
Danielle

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