Jared Sawada walked through a tunnel hoping his round hadn’t just gone down the tubes.

A three-putt bogey on his 10th hole left him at even par in the Monday qualifier for the Sony Open in Hawaii and on the walk to the 11th tee, Sawada said his mind was filled with “a lot of bad words.”

“But at the same time you have to let it go and you have to refocus again,” he said, “and I did a good job of not holding onto three-putting there.

“It’s nice you have to walk under the tunnel. That gives you some time to let it go.”

When he emerged, Sawada hammered a drive to set up the first of six birdies in his final eight holes in a round of 6-under-par 66 and earned one of four spots available in the qualifier held at Hoakalei Country Club in Ewa Beach.

Sawada first played in the Sony Open in 2014 when he won the Governors Cup qualifier for local amateurs. He played his way into the event through the Monday qualifier in 2017, ’19 and ’20 and will return to Waialae Country Club for a fifth appearance on Thursday.

“That’s just amazing,” Sawada said of his Monday success at Hoakalei. “It’s never a guarantee and I got off to a slow start. I hit a bunch of greens, but I kept leaving the putt short.

“It could have gone either way today.”

Sawada, who has conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour, was at 1 over through seven holes before a birdie-birdie finish going into the turn. He seemingly squandered the momentum with his three-putt from 5 feet on No. 10. But a chip and putt for birdie on No. 11 started a run of three birdies. He went back-to-back at Nos. 15 and 16 and his birdie on the par-5 18th finished off a 31 on the back nine.

Sawada topped the leaderboard until BJ Doucett signed for a 9-under 63 in the final group of the day. Koichiro Ishika and Andy Ogletree will make their Sony Open debuts after posting rounds of 67.

Just as Sawada faced a turning point in his round on Monday, he recalled a crossroads in his career back in high school. As a Mililani senior in 2008, he was planning on leaving golf behind after the state tournament. But then-University of Hawaii men’s golf coach Ronn Miyashiro tracked him down after his round and offered him a spot on the team.

“I didn’t send a single letter to any colleges or anything, so I was planning on stopping golf,” Sawada said. “So the reason I’m here today is because of Ronn. He gave me that chance and ever since then I just kept trying to get better. It just took me a long time to realize I wanted to golf.”

Sawada was part of a surge in Hawaii representation in the PGA Tour’s first full-field event of 2022 on Sunday and Monday.

Sony veteran Parker McLachlin and Kevin Carll, the head pro at Waialae, were added to the field as sponsor’s exemptions. Brent Grant, a Moanalua graduate and Korn Ferry Tour member, was on the front nine on Monday when he learned he’d been given an exemption as well.

“I think I’ll have a lot quieter mind this year,” Sawada said. “Every year it’s just so exciting, there’s so many things going on, so many people you know, it’s really hard to focus and keep the chatter down inside your mind.

“This year I think I’ll do a little better job of that and be a little more relaxed and calm.”

Maryknoll graduate and Washington State freshman Peter Jung won the qualifier for the spot reserved for a local amateur in November. Garrett Okamura earned a berth as the Aloha Section PGA champion. Chan Kim, the 2006 HHSAA champion at Kaimuki and a seven-time winner on the Japan Tour, will make his Sony debut this week.

Ogletree will also be among the newcomers in the next step in an already decorated career. The former All-American at Georgia Tech won the 2019 U.S. Amateur Championship and took low-amateur honors at The Masters in 2020 when he tied for 34th.

“Obviously Mondays are stressful, you have to make a lot of birdies,” Ogletree said. “Today I didn’t make any bogeys, which helped out a lot, and I hit 17 greens in regulation. So I made it pretty easy on myself and gave myself a lot of opportunities.”