This week’s 103rd Manoa Cup will be the first since six-time champion Ken Miyaoka died earlier this year at 82.

David Fink will defend at Oahu Country Club. A field full of Hawaii’s finest golfers, including three women, will chase the prestigious Hawaii state amateur match play championship beginning Monday.

It won’t be the same without the little guy faithfully following Saturday’s final round. Miyaoka won the Manoa Cup six times between 1961 and ’75, an amazing accomplishment that is the foundation of his residence in the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame. He was playing twice a week at Ala Wai until a few years ago and golfed at OCC, which gave him an honorary membership, until the end. This year’s Manoa Cup is dedicated to him.

More than 10 years ago he called Brandan Kop, another Hawaii Golf Hall of Famer, and asked if he would play Ace Day with him at OCC. They played together every month until his death, talking golf, gambling and, especially, Manoa Cup.

"It was fun," said Kop, 30 years and two Manoa Cups behind Miyaoka. "He enjoyed the game. He had a hard time breaking 100 the last few years, and when it was raining at OCC it would be hard for him to walk. He’d go check it out and call me and say, ‘Carts gotta stay on the path, cannot walk, maybe not today.’ But he would always go down and make sure. It would be storming, he’d still go. He loved the game."

Miyaoka played his first Manoa Cup barefoot in 1944, too poor to buy golf shoes. Two years later, he led Kaimuki High School to an Interscholastic League of Honolulu championship, and one of the greatest amateur golf careers in Hawaii took off. He worked nights so he could golf and used to hit balls off a scrub brush nailed to plywood when he held a job on Eniwetok Atoll.

At 5-foot-5, 130 pounds, Miyaoka was hardly intimidating, but he will always be remembered as one of Hawaii golf’s great grinders. He never overpowered a golf course, but almost always beat it. Miyaoka believed 18 pars was good enough to win over most opponents, particularly at Manoa Cup, played on hilly, quirky OCC.

"He was like Ben Hogan," Kop recalled. "He hit everything straight — driver, irons, wedges, so OCC was no problem. He usually was hitting two more clubs into the green, but that’s an advantage in match play because you’re always hitting first. He’d hit it to 10 feet and you’ve got a 9-iron in your hand thinking I’ve got to hit it inside 10 feet. He’d hit first and get on the green, he was never in trouble. It wears on a guy. He never made mistakes and that makes you make mistakes.

"He had a psychological advantage, just an intimidation factor from playing Manoa Cup. People knew about him and how he did at Manoa Cup. That was worth a couple holes."

Miyaoka would always follow the Manoa Cup final and be one of the first to offer congratulations, often giving winners a nugget of Manoa Cup wisdom. Kop collected nuggets for years, hitting the mother lode when he became Miyaoka’s Ace Day partner and, ultimately, close friend.

The older man advised going to the locker room between rounds and elevating your legs, to help climb the Nuuanu hills in the afternoon (Manoa Cup players are required to walk). He told Kop to concentrate on his wedge and putter the month before the Cup, believing it was won from 40 yards and in. He offered tips on playing OCC’s most unusual holes and suggested solitude and silence were more productive than offering opponents encouragement, which Miyaoka worried would "pump them up." He rarely lost the mental game.

"Ken had the most experience, the most wins, so everybody listened to him," said Jonathan Ota, who won Manoa Cup in 2006at age 44. "Brandan to this day still uses his tips."

Fink never got a chance. He attributes winning the Cup last year on his third try to expecting his opponent to play great, and maturity — "Knowing how to cope with the different adversities thrown at you like weather, your competitor making a putt, not getting a good bounce, which happens a lot at Oahu."

The ‘Iolani graduate will be the No. 1 seed when the first round begins Tuesday. Fink defeated 2009 champ TJ Kua in last year’s final. It was Fink’s first tournament in months, after redshirting his first year at Oregon State. This season, he earned Pac-10 All-Academic honorable mention, played in all 11 tournaments and had a scoring average of 72.88 — best in history for an OSU freshman.

The field of 95 players, including Kop, Ota, 1996 champ Damien Victorino, Alika Bell, Lorens Chan, Alina Ching, Alice Kim and Marissa Chow, starts qualifying Monday at 6:45 a.m. The public is invited to watch and there is no admission charge. The Hawaii State Golf Association will provide live scoring at hawaiistategolf.org. Hole-by-hole updates start Wednesday.