You would excuse Kamehameha senior Pono Yanagi if he came back from his official college recruiting visit feeling like he just visited the center of the universe.
There had never been a day like it in Pullman, Wash., two weeks ago when the ESPN Game Day crew showed up in the rolling wheat and lentil fields of the Palouse for an early morning celebration of the day’s Pac-12 football contest against Oregon.
The Game Day crew said it had never seen a crowd so enthusiastic and large as that one that was in full force at 4 a.m. local time. The school had never experienced such a moment over all the years of WSU athletics. They said there were more than 20,000 fans there to rejoice in the national attention.
“Unbelievable,” Yanagi said. “I’d never seen so many people — they had never seen so many people — it just filled you with excitement for the Cougars.”
It wasn’t his first visit, Yanagi had accompanied his older sister Nani on her unofficial visit when Pono was in the sixth grade. He wasn’t really paying much attention at the time and there were no crowds greeting them.
But the older sister was the one who hooked him in, as was the case with Lacey Uchida, a Waiakea sophomore golfer whose sister Kaelyn is enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Just last month, Yanagi and Uchida teamed up to win the four-ball stroke play (72) and foursomes (74) competition at the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association Championship at Poipu Bay on Kauai, identifying them as two of the top junior golfers on the Big Island, while realizing that confirming a certain status on teenage golfers is a chancy proposition.
“It’s so fluid among the top players that you hesitate saying too much,” said Kevin Hayashi, the professional who splits his time between Hilo Municipal and Makani, on the west side of the island. “But, having said that, there’s no doubt that Lacey and Pono are right there with the best on the island.”
Next week, Yanagi, Uchida and Waiakea junior Isaiah Kanno will be on the 16-member Hawaii team that takes on Japan juniors at the Asia Pacific Junior Cup at Waikoloa Kings’ Course.
With scholastic golf season on the horizon, Yanagi and Uchida each have plans for the future, just as each of them can trace their starts in the sport to their older sister.
“I grew up with it,” Uchida said. “I was very much a sports-oriented person, but everybody told me with the other sports, that I was too small, too short, whatever.
“But my sister kept challenging me at golf and I couldn’t resist trying to beat her.”
She started playing when she was 5 year-old, remembering, after watching her sister, that golf didn’t seem that tough.
“(Sister Kaelyn) was doing it, and I was like, ‘This should be easy, I took it as a challenge.’” Lacey said. “Yeah, it wasn’t as easy as I thought.”
Lacey is size-challenged, standing barely 5-feet tall, denting the scales at 110 pounds. Her sister and a lot of others outhit her off the tee, but she accepts that as her reality and makes do with other aspects of the game.
She was told not to expect to much because of her diminutive stature, but Lacey Uchida doesn’t scare easily.
“I told my parents, ‘Just let me hit that ball and see what happens,’ then I realized right away that (Kaelyn) would hit the ball a lot farther than me, but I also knew that didn’t mean I had to let her beat me.”
They started going to Hilo Municipal together, Kaelyn headed for the driving range, while Lacey went to chip and putt and work on her short game from all angles. Her putting is a strength and it didn’t take long for her to realize the short game and a well-placed putt can make up for being outdriven off the tee.
“I work at it,” she said, “because I hate losing, I absolutely hate it. I’m very competitive and I have always been even more motivated when we compete.”
It’s back and forth with the two of them, and while Kaelyn has the upper hand playing Division II golf at UHH, Lacey is looking for more. She wants a full ride at a Division I school, preferably Oregon.
“That’s more like a starting point than some total goal,” she said. “I want to make a living at golf.”
UHH would not allow Kaelyn to be interviewed for her role in challenging her younger sister.
Yanagi started even earlier, first picking up a club and following older his to Hilo Muni when he was a 3-year-old.
“She had a head start,” Pono said, “she was already playing when I was born, but yeah, I remember being out there, following her to the range and I would sit and watch. I remember just wanting to get a club and start swinging, it was a huge motivation for me.”
Uchida and Yanagi could hardly be more different. She hits low and straight and works the edges of the short game to contend while he is a big kid who hits high and deep rainbows off the tee and has a game plan almost the opposite of Uchida. Her challenge is to work around the lack of a long ball start, with her line drive tee shots, while his is to develop a second tee shot like hers, one that stays low and can cut through the ever-present winds so common on the Big Island.
Part of his maturation process was learning to back off on the self-criticism and work with, rather than against, the game.
“I had my bad moments, for sure,” he said. “I got yelled at by my parents for some of the things I did out there, and they were right. I used to throw little temper tantrums when I played and those were not helpful.
“The thing about the game, for me, is the continuing challenge,” Yanagi said. “The challenge of duplicating that shot, being able to hit it the way you want to hit it, over and over is the process. Sometimes you need to put some spin on it, there are always weather conditions to keep in mind, it something that keeps me motivated, keeps challenging me.”
Genders, age and specific approaches all have their place, but the place that brought these two together is Hilo Municipal. Asked how many times they played the local course, they looked at each other with blank stares, looked back at the questioner and admitted they had no idea.
Hundreds of times each, easily. Thousands? Probably. Each of them spends 15-20 hours a week at the game when attending school, double that when school is out.
Coached by Troy Tamiya, Lacey is dead set on attracting a scholarship from Oregon.
“Definitely, that’s the short-term goal,” she said, “I want to be a nurse practitioner, but after that, it’s competing and winning at the NCAA level and then the LPGA Tour. I see myself doing that, but if not, I’ll have a profession and I’ll keep playing to get better.”
Yanagi enters his senior year determined to win the BIIF individual title, then it’s on to Pullman to compete in the Pac-12 prior to earning his card on the PGA Tour. If worse comes to worst, he will study the game, perfect his skills and be a club pro somewhere.
“He’s been around,” said his coach, Hayashi, “because Pono got started early, thanks to his sister. He has a good head for the game, he knows what he needs to do, he just needs to keep playing and keep that motivation going.”
He got all the college motivation he needed at Pullman two weeks ago and Lacey is seemingly filled with it.
Big Island golfers might keep an eye on these two, they’ll likely be making news for years to come.
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