Tournaments are nothing new to Kevin Hayashi, the club pro at Hilo Municipal Golf Course, who is now in his 29th year as a professional member of the PGA.
Hawaii golfers have a tougher road to follow than their mainland counterparts because of the generally windier conditions on island courses and the expense and timing to make an impact in major tournaments is necessarily greater for Big Island players like Hayashi.
Even so, he’s won more than 50 tournaments, and his time on the mainland suggests he’d do quite well there, given time and opportunity, but make no mistake about Hayashi, he’s a Hilo boy who was in the first graduating class at Waiakea High School, and he isn’t looking to move.
“This is home, this is me,” he said the other day in the clubhouse restaurant at Hilo Muni. “I don’t have any desire to live anywhere else. I’m Hilo, or Hilo is me, however you want to look at it.”
He’s grounded here more than ever now, following the birth of his first child Kate, born two months ago to girlfriend Terilyn.
“It puts everything in perspective,” he said of being a first-time father. “When I come home and see that little girl, it’s, ‘oh my god, this is what life is all about.’ I think it might even help my game because I have a kind of peace I didn’t have before.”
Just how helpful the newborn might be could be revealed for everyone to see next week when he and 34 other club pros who qualified compete in the 73rd PGA Senior Championship at Harbor Shores Golf Club in Benton Harbor, Mich., about 90 minutes north of Chicago adjacent to Lake Michigan.
It’s an attractive course that bears very little resemblance to Hilo Muni, a wide open course with no bunkers to be found anywhere. Elevated greens demand a certain chipping skill out of Hilo golfers, but you never have worry about burying a drive in a sand trap.
By contrast, Harbor Shores is bunker-heavy with traps on every hole and an extensive beach on the second that looks a little like a Pacific ocean island among the fairway. Hayashi doesn’t think for a moment he’ll have trouble negotiating his way around the course. He flies out on Thursday, five days ahead of the tournament, scheduled for May 24-29.
“I’ll be able to play it at least three times before it starts,” Hayashi said. “And who knows? It’s by the lake, maybe it will get windy.”
If so, it will give the Hilo pro a familiar feeling, and whether the wind kicks up or not, Hayashi isn’t making the trip just to be a vacationing golfer happy to be there.
He wants to win.
“I want to actually do something,” he said. “I want to compete and hang around and see if I can get in position to make a run.”
The last two Senior PGA Tournaments at this course — in 2012 and 2014 — were won by Roger Chapman of England and the Scotsman, Colin Montgomerie, who each shot identical 271, 13-under totals. Does Hayashi have a 13-under in him for high-level competition against golfing legends such as Tom Watson, Fred Couples, and Hale Irwin?
“I think so,” he said. “One thing you learn is that nobody’s perfect in golf, you can always get better and you can always have a swing here or there that shoots your score up. It happens at every level.
“I’d like to be able to play well, to be within maybe five strokes or so (for the last round). If I can stay that close, anything can happen.”
Perhaps even a big payday. Unlike a lot of professionals in a lot of sports, Hayashi doesn’t pretend the money is unimportant.
“To be quite honest, it is about the money,” he said. “For the people who have already won the big money, or the ones getting involved for the first time, it probably isn’t about the money, but for me? After this much time involved with this game and having an opportunity like this, yeah, I’d like to go back there and win some money.”
Montgomerie and Chapman each were awarded $378,000 for their efforts, but the first place money is going up by at least $50,000 this year.
Either way, he will be back at the end of the month, teaching golf at the club that is under construction for the rest of the calendar year, and if you don’t find him there, he won’t be far away.
“I’m a simple guy,” he said. “I’m here. I’m with my dad or my brother out in bay fishing or I’m at home with our daughter. It might not sound too exciting, but it’s all I need.”
Still, it would be nice to come home with a fat paycheck and then decide how to spend it on the little girl in the house.
