The wind picked up, the greens were wildly fast and Mililani freshman Makena Yonemura refused to wilt.
Yonemura carded a final-round 78 to finish at 150 and capture the OIA girls golf championship on Tuesday night at the Pearl at Kalauao. It was night by the time the final groups finished, still bright enough to play, but close to 7 p.m.
“I just like to admire how beautiful this course is. I find it as a good challenge to improve my mindset, especially, because it might make you feel like you’re a bad golfer getting bad scores, but you just push through it,” she said. “Know what you’re capable of doing.”
The course is normally fast on the greens, a fact that ILH and OIA golfers readily attest to. It was even faster after a USGA qualifying event in the morning. Skill and patience were rewarded even more than usual in Tuesday’s round, which was a bit windier and changed directions more often than it did Monday.
Nanami Yano of Roosevelt was second, three strokes behind Yonemura.
A USGA qualifier event in the morning meant the OIA championships had a later start than usual. The first groups teed off at 11:40 a.m.
Yonemura and her Trojans teammates celebrated the girls team championship with a three-player score of 463. Kady Matsumoto placed third overall (80-74-154) and Mia Nakaoka placed fifth (76-83-159).
Kalani was second with a tally of 510, followed by Roosevelt (519), Moanalua (527) and Pearl City (659).
Moanalua senior Gunnar Lee won the boys individual championship, one year after finishing as runner-up to Isaac Kim. Despite tougher conditions on day two, Lee fared better with a 76 and finished at 154 on the unpredictable course.
“I’ve been playing at Pearl for a long time. I played in Casey (Nakama)’s program since I was 11. I played a lot of junior tournaments here, probably more than 10,” Lee said. “The whole week played pretty hard. Today was a little harder because of the wind. Sometimes the wind was left to right, and it would switch right to left. The rough for the USGA qualifier, the greens were an 11. It was speeding up and the grass is very firm. If you tap with your putter too hard, you get punished. This year you have to play more to the front and let it roll to the hole rather than attack the pin.”
Roosevelt placed two in the top five: Caden Kawashige, who finished second at 158, and Kana‘i Poyo-Aquino (166), who placed fourth.
Kahuku’s Keola Silva placed third (163) and Bailey Mulligan of Radford was fifth (166).
Moanalua also defended its boys team title. This makes it five in a row under coach Andrew Hoopii. In addition to Lee, the scores of Weien Chang and Austin Koki, who each finished at 167, and Tanner Tokuna (192) counted toward the team total of 680.
Mililani (691) was boys runner-up, followed by Roosevelt (705), Kahuku (709) and Kaiser (741).
The door of opportunity was wide open in the girls division with the graduation of 2025 girls champion Kate Nakaoka of Mililani.
Yonemura carded a par 72 on Monday to take a four-stroke lead over Nakaoka and Yano.
Yonemura had three first-place finishes during the regular season. She shared first with Mia Nakaoka at Ala Wai on Feb. 23, led the field on March 2 at Ewa Villages, and tied for first with Roosevelt’s Yano at Hoakalei on April 13.
Yonemura’s older sister, Mariko, placed third in the OIA championships last year and currently plays for Gonzaga. Younger sister Makena had played roughly a dozen rounds at Pearl between tournaments and practice.
“When you get aggressive, this course can get you in a lot of trouble if you have short-sided chips or just impossible shots,” Yonemura noted. “The key is to just stay patient, work with what you’ve got. Don’t try to force anything and, yeah, just play your game.”
The wind will win. It’s a matter of embracing a stalemate rather than fighting the invisible.