When Hawaii Golf Hall of Famer Guinea Kop won the inaugural Mid-Pacific Open in 1956, club president — and the second governor elected in Hawaii — John Burns handed him $150.
First prize is $15,000 in this week’s 61st Mid-Pacific Open.
It is tough to choose what is more mind-boggling — first prize multiplying 100 times or the fact that a 72-hole golf tournament is teeing off this morning for the 61st time.
Local golfers call this a “legacy” event and “Hawaii’s Masters.” Guys who have won it — and LPGA golfer Stephanie Kono, the first woman to make the cut — go on in heartfelt detail about why it is so endearing and enduring.
A few of their reasons might surprise you.
“The members take pride in making their course hard for players,” says three-time champion David Ishii, who still holds the tournament record of 17 under, set in 1986. “They make it ridiculously fast to putt on the greens. It’s fun because you don’t get to putt on greens like that at any other course here. It’s too hard for the normal players, but it’s fun.”
It’s fun for those who do well, and that includes a good percentage of Hawaii’s Golf Hall of Fame. Ishii was the last member to win, in 2006 when he turned 50 and was inducted into the Hall soon after. Golfers now in the Hall won 60 percent of the Mid-Pac titles before that.
That includes the record eight the late Lance Suzuki collected.
“That just goes to show how special he was, how great a golfer,” says Tyler Ota, attempting to defend his low amateur title this year. “To conquer this once is hard. To do it eight times is out of this world.”
Like Ishii, Ota also thrives on Mid-Pac’s unique charms.
“I’d never played a course that fast, that dry, that quick,” he recalls of his first Open in 2011. “That’s why I fell in love with it. It’s rare we get to play courses like this.”
Mid-Pacific was designed in the 1920s by legendary golf architect Seth Raynor, who also did Waialae Country Club. After Raynor saw the kiawe and guava jungle where Mid-Pacific would be, he told the Honolulu Advertiser, “There is no doubt in my mind but that a course of championship length can be laid out here that will easily rank among the best five or six in the U.S.”
The first eight holes opened Sept. 14, 1928, with the ninth showing up two weeks later. Alex Beckley, the course’s first golf pro, helped convince the club to add the second nine in 1949.
While part of the tournament’s charm is clearly on its unique course, much of the charm is also off it.
“It seems local. Very, very local,” says TJ Esaki-Kua, whose 10-under 62 is a course record. “The membership is very local, very friendly. They keep it very family-like. Everybody seems like a friend around here.”
His most vivid Mid-Pac Open memory is that outrageously low round he shot six years ago on the way to holding off PGA Tour winner Dean Wilson.
Surprisingly, what Esaki-Kua remembers are “the ones I missed.”
“Kevin Hayashi is only guy who would do this,” Kua recalls. “After that round he sat me down and said, ‘How many putts did you miss?’ I said, ‘a few.’ He said, ‘That’s the difference between 62 and 59.”
Esaki-Kua, back from his new home in Palo Alto to play, calls this his “favorite tournament by far.” Guy Yamamoto won the 1995 U.S. Public Links national championship and The Masters invitation that went with it. His memories here are just as cherished, particularly the year he got to play with Suzuki and Ishii.
He calls that experience “out of this world” and praises Mid-Pac’s members, employees and tournament volunteers (some 150) and organizers’ willingness to adapt, while still preserving their legacy.
“They really treasure the history of it, yet they’re not afraid to try new things,” Yamamoto says. “It’s a long-time tournament, but it’s fresh. Who else has a champions dinner?
“They’re evolving still here at Mid-Pacific. This is tradition bound and history rich, but they’re not afraid to try things.”
Today’s feature group has Cyr and 2016 champion Parker McLachlin playing with top amateurs Matt Ma and Ota, beginning at 12:24 p.m. (7:24 a.m. Friday).
Cyr is going for his third Mid-Pacific Open championship. Only Suzuki, Ishii, Regan Lee (the only player to three-peat), Greg Meyer, Allan Yamamoto and Paul Scodeller have won that many.
Brandan Kop is the last amateur to take the overall title, in 1995.
61ST MID-PACIFIC OPEN
>> When: 6:30 a.m. today and Friday and 7 a.m. Saturday and Sunday
>> Where: Mid-Pacific Country Club
>> Purse: $70,000 ($15,000 to winner)
>> Defending champion: Sam Cyr (11-under 277)
>> Admission: Free
