Stephanie Kono and Parker McLachlin burst out of golf oblivion last week, while Patricia Ehrhart — formerly Patricia Schremmer —participated in a blast from the past at the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open.
All call Hawaii home and all were in contention in prime events, on the same stunning weekend. Kono was more than in contention, getting her first professional victory.
The Punahou alum turned pro in 2012, after a remarkable junior career and three All-America seasons at UCLA. Saturday, after years of frustration and back injuries, she won the Donald Ross Classic.
Capturing the Symetra Tour’s flagship event came with a $33,750 check, kicking her up 79 spots to No. 6 on the money list. The top 10 at the end of the season earn playing privileges on the LPGA Tour, where Kono began as a pro. She also climbed 429 places, to No. 381, in the Rolex Women’s World Golf rankings.
“I’ve always dreamt of winning out here and it’s so hard — there’s so many good players that everything has to come together in that week,” said Kono, who has made $38,388 in nine events this year. “I’m just really thankful that it did, because you believe that it will, but there’s times that you doubt it, for sure. No matter what happens, I’ll always remember it.”
McLachlin, another Punahou alum, graduated from UCLA in 2002 and worked his way onto the PGA Tour. He won the 2008 Legends Reno Tahoe Open and then his swing basically disappeared into the game’s great void for several years, taking his confidence and exceptional short game with it.
“I’ve been playing pretty good golf for about three years now, but just not in tournaments people know about,” McLachlin said by phone. “A couple years back I won Mid-Pac and lost the State Open in a playoff and this year I was second at Mid-Pac.
“I earned a full year on the Web.com last year and thought I would break through and I tried too hard. I wasn’t allowing myself to just play free.”
At the end of 2017, he started looking at options off the course. To his surprise there were many, from developing apps to helping Mark Rolfing with anything and everything Hawaii golf related.
“I thought, ‘There are so many other things,’ ” recalls McLachlin, who has two young children with wife Kristy. “I don’t have to feel so stuck that playing professional golf is my only avenue for income or as a profession. Brainstorming with Rolfing was really freeing for my golf in a weird way — just knowing that there were other options out there for me was very freeing.”
It freed him enough that he found himself in contention for the first time in a decade at last week’s John Deere Classic, after firing 66 the first two days. He ultimately tied for 16th and won $81,366 — more than the previous eight years on the PGA and Web.com tours combined.
Going into this week’s Barbasol Championship, he has won $158,000 this year — $2.5 million in his career — with two top-25s and four made cuts in seven PGA Tour starts.
“At the end of the day I’ve done way more this year than the last seven years combined,” McLachlin says. “I’m just trying to get a little better at a time and continue to have a good attitude and have fun playing golf and not care so much. Play like a kid again.”
In vivid contrast, Ehrhart was playing with the 50-older folks last week at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, which debuted 38 years after the senior men got their major. It was played at Chicago Golf Club, the first 18-hole golf course in the U.S.
Ehrhart, 52, golfed on the LPGA Tour before moving here to raise three surf-loving daughters. She got her amateur status back, won the first three HSWGA Member-Only Stroke Play Championships and reached the semifinals of the 2016 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and 2017 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur.
Last week, she grabbed a share of 23rd. Former Rainbow Wahine Cindy Rarick missed the cut by one, along with Jan Stephenson. JoAnne Carner shot her age (79) on a celebratory opening day.
“The most fun was reconnecting with old golf friends, playing golf seven days in a row at Chicago Golf Club and seeing the glow in my daughter Scarlett’s eyes as she discussed golf with the hundreds of people who spoke to her,” Ehrhart said “Also, the kindness of all the competitors, the enthusiasm of the crowds and the gratitude we all felt for the game and the Open.”
Scarlett, 11, was credentialed as her mom’s player manager and Jimmy Buffett — yes, that Jimmy Buffett — as her player instructor. Ehrhart’s daughters compete for the singer’s Margaritaville Surf Team.
While Kono was charging into the lead with a second-round 66 Friday, and McLachlin and Ehrhart both settled into 10th place at the midway point, ‘Iolani grad Marissa Chow was winning the third annual Women’s California State Open.
Chow (70—136) took the title by five strokes over Haley Moore, who scored the winning point for Arizona at this year’s NCAA Women’s Championship.
Chow, a two-time third-team All-American at Pepperdine, now has two professional victories. She won the Texas Women’s Open in May.