Kaua’i’s Rachel Kyono will be the marked player when girls’ state golf tournament begins Saturday. She can see their eyes in the sun’s reflection off her club shaft. With each drive or chip she knows they’re there, watching her, gunning
Kaua’i’s Rachel Kyono will be the marked player when girls’ state golf tournament begins Saturday.
She can see their eyes in the sun’s reflection off her club shaft. With each drive or chip she knows they’re there, watching her, gunning for her, waiting for her to double bogey or drop one in the water.
And it makes her nervous.
Which is something rare for Rachel Kyono.
“My nerves generally don’t get to me,” the Kaua’i High School golfer said. “But this is different. I’m not used to people coming after me like this.”
Kyono, 17, will be the favorite to win the individual title at Saturday’s Hawai’i High School Athletic Association state girls’ golf tournament on Maui. It will be the first time in her career, she said, that expectations of her will be so great at such a high profile event.
“People are really expecting me to go out there and win it,” Kyono said. “It sure would be sweet to do it.”
The dominant female golfer in the Kaua’i Interscholastic Federation for a few years running – she won the KIF individual championship by 11 strokes this year – Kyono missed last year’s state tournament because of a prior engagement. She was plying her trade at an American Junior Golf Association event in Arizona at the time.
“I have no regrets about missing last year’s state tournament,” Kyono said. “But I really want to do well for this one.”
It will be her final opportunity. The senior will graduate soon, spend the summer improving her game and hit the links at Pepperdine University in the fall.
As proof of her commitment to success on Saturday, Kyono traveled to Maui last weekend to practice on the state course, Kaanapali South.
“The course was okay, and I was hitting the ball pretty well there,” Kyono said. “But I didn’t keep score. I just hit balls and took notes. I didn’t want to know my score either way.”
The fact that the state tournament has been condensed to a one-day, 36-hole event may benefit Kyono. The tourney is traditionally stretched over a Thursday and Friday. However, the recent 20-day teachers’ strike squashed that possibility.
“Rachel’s got some experience playing those longer days from AJGA qualifiers and things like that,” Kaua’i golf coach Winston Ogata said. “She might have some strength when others start to get tired.”
The prospect of wrapping 18 holes of golf only to face the thought of another full round will be daunting for the younger golfers, Kyono said.
“It’s tough to stay mentally focused on the goal when you get into that second 18 holes,” Kyono said.
The Red Raider has been narrowed in on her goals for quite some time.
Kyono picked up golf at the age of nine. Her first “significant win” came at the Hawai’i State Junior Golf Tournament – held at Wailua Golf Course – when she was 11.
She said the state began to take notice of her at “about 13,” when she started taking people by surprise.
“There were some older girls who were better than me, then,” Kyono said. “But when I turned 14 and 15, I kind of took center stage, I guess.”
And she has held it since.
She notched another highlight last August when she won the Women’s Stroke Play Tournament at Midpac Golf Course on Oahu.
“There was an ex-pro in the event and it was a big win,” Kyono said. “I think that’s when I took a step back and said, ‘Wow, I might have something here.'”
She also realized then that others saw the “something.”
“All the newspapers and everything have been saying I’m the one to beat now,” Kyono said sheepishly. “I don’t know about all that.”
Nor does she know if she’d like to throw her hat into the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) ring even if she owned the necessary talent to do so.
“My parents and others would like to see me give it a shot,” Kyono said. “But I don’t really have that as a goal unless I really show I’m that good.
“I think I’d like to just be a head professional at a course. I don’t think I like the idea of all the travel.”
But all that will have to wait. This weekend, Kyono and her teammates will be focused on the state tournament.
“I think we’ve got a shot,” Ogata said of his team.
Between Kyono, Lehua Wise, Kiilani Matsuyoshi, Jennie Pleas, Robyn Cacayon and MacKenzie Ajimura, the three top scores could go quite a long way toward putting the Red Raiders near the top.
Boys
Giving the Kaua’i boys a shot at the state team title will be Casey Watabu, Darrin Furusho, Allan Baab, Kurt Inouye and Erick Wong.
Sports editor Jason Gallic at 245-3681 or mailto:kauaisports@pulitzer.net
