Nakama to be inducted into Hall of Fame

Casey Nakama’s Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame credentials speak for themself, but what might become the most memorable element of his career goes unspoken.

"I’m silently proud of the fact that guys like Butch Harmon and David Leadbetter …," Nakama says in a low voice, speaking of arguably the world’s most well known golf instructors, "they never created a monster like her."

The "monster" is Michelle Wie, the biggest name in women’s golf and one of the most recognizable faces in sports.

She came to Nakama as a gawky 10-year old and he immediately saw her potential. It was Nakama who created the flowing work-of-art swing that silenced a range full of astonished PGA Tour pros at the 2004 Sony Open in Hawaii, where "Big Wiesy" would make her first indelible mark.

"My proudest coaching moment has to be Michelle, because when she played that Pro-Junior, she went on the driving range and the pros stopped playing golf," recalled Nakama. "Tom Lehman, Fred Couples, Fred Funk said they’d never seen anything like it.

"I remember Tom Lehman talking to me … he said whatever you do, don’t change that swing. It will take care of itself. He could see it. I really believed then I was on the right track."

That track will lead Nakama to the Aloha Section PGA Hall of Fame induction Feb. 7. He will be honored at the seventh annual Ho’olaulea Awards banquet at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.

Nakama’s road to the hall actually included a track. He was the 1975 high school long jump champion and enjoyed an all-star basketball career at Moanalua.

Golf would come soon after he tried to guard former Rainbow Victor Kelly at an all-star game practice session at Blaisdell Center.

"He made a move on me and I was so far behind that, at that moment, I knew I didn’t have a future in this sport," Nakama said. "I wasn’t going to go to college and play basketball. The guys were just too good."

Then cousin Lloyd Nakama arranged a family golf tournament for his baseball-mad family. Casey Nakama took to the driving range like the range-rat he would become. He had always appreciated the arc of a 300-foot fly in baseball. Hitting a 7-iron 150 yards put that to shame.

He was hooked. The proximity of his father’s gas station to Navy-Marine Golf Course, where his huge posse of golf friends would begin with assistant pro David Chin, did not hurt.

"My ultimate goal was to play on the PGA Tour full-time," Nakama said. "It was never to make a million dollars."

He came close, winning a broad array of big local events, then finding success in Asia and on mini-tours, and reaching the final stage of qualifying twice.

Nakama vividly remembers qualifying for three straight Hawaiian Opens and the 1987 Kapalua International, where he watched in awe as Jack Nicklaus hit balls with him on the range.

"I was just, ‘Oh my God,’" Nakama recalls. "There was this crowd. It was intimidating to me. I stopped hitting and just watched. I was so excited.

"Then I started warming up again and Lee Trevino came down. He was hitting right in front of me. I’d met him before because of his connection with the Makalena family, but to see him cracking jokes and talking to everybody … that whole tournament to me was the high point of my career."

While preparing to go out on tour yet again in 1992, he realized he might "be good, but not good enough." He didn’t know what to do next, but did know he wanted to coach — baseball or basketball.

Friends would guide him in another extremely successful direction, not for the last time. They got a golf group together for Nakama to teach. He liked it, and so did the golfers. Another friend put an ad in Pacific Business News for him and he started helping corporate groups.

"It was satisfying and there were enough local tournaments then that I could also compete," he said. "But it also was about money. I was broke."

In 1996, he guided Punahou sophomore Kathy Cho to a Jennie K. championship and realized he had a knack for helping kids as well as adults. He started summer programs at his new Golf Development Center at Olomana Golf Links.

Then Tiger Woods turned pro and "Thank God I had my thing in place because junior golf blew up." He got Hall of Famer Lance Suzuki to help, and has since taken on Philip Chun and Norman-Ganin Asao.

"I told Lance," Nakama says, "you can’t go away from this game with all this information and not pass it on. You’ve got to pass it on."

In 2000, 10-year-old Michelle Wie came into Nakama’s life. She beat state high school champ Merynn Ito in a U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links playoff to become the youngest USGA open qualifier in history.

The rest is history: Qualifying for an LPGA event at 12; playing on the PGA Tour; winning the 2003 Women’s Public Links and reaching the quarterfinals of the U.S. Public Links two years later; knocking on the door of the 2006 U.S. Open; then winning this year’s U.S. Women’s Open and LPGA Lotte Championship at home.

"Back then, the Wies were like, ‘Now what do we do?’" Nakama recalled, "so I looked up all their flights and they went to the mainland for public links and came back. After all the attention she got, Michelle said, ‘I’ve got to play that, I want to do that.’"

Nakama hasn’t slowed since, overseeing his thriving teaching center with wife Jeri and still pounding enough balls to contend for senior titles. He qualified for the last two Pacific Links Hawaii Championships.

"I feel blessed that I enjoy it," Nakama says. "It’s not like I’m in an office for eight hours and can’t wait to get out. I enjoy what I’m doing. It’s just … I’m blessed by the timing of the whole thing."

He will be in the Hall of Fame because he has shared those blessings, along with his love for the game and special gift for communicating, with so many.