When Alison Takamiya began looking at colleges as a junior at Punahou, she didn’t feel her golf game was ready for the Division I level.

Four years later, her long-term goal is to play professional golf.

There are many reasons for how the two-time Northwest Conference Player of the Year has taken her game to a level that maybe she at times questioned whether she would ever reach.

One of them is her decision to attend George Fox University and play for the one coach she felt believed in her.

“From the very first time I met her, I felt that (George Fox women’s golf coach Mary Jo McCloskey) was someone who I knew would always support me,” Takamiya said in a phone interview Tuesday. “A couple of schools I reached out to never even got an answer back. She seemed genuinely excited for me to come to her school.”

It has turned out to be a missed opportunity for those other schools and a huge get for George Fox.

Takamiya earned medalist honors as a freshman at the NWC Championships and backed it up with a second.

ALISON TAKAMIYA

>> School: George Fox

>> Class: Junior

>> High school: Punahou (2020)