61st Annual Maui Womens Golf Invitational

There is, I am pleased to report, still a pulse of tradition and aloha left here in the world of golfdom in the Hawaiian islands….

It emanates from the hearts of Maui’s women, who this past weekend (as has been a long tradition) held their 61st Maui Women’s Annual Golf Invitational at the best event venue on our island: The King Kamehameha Golf Club.

“Honoring our Past, and Embracing our Future” were the words I found on their program this year, part of an elaborate and truly unique celebration of the game, the participants, and the charity in which they were all united in supporting:  the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge.

I had just come in from riding the course on Sunday, as the final round was winding down. The players were getting buffeted by high winds and it was clear the 36-hole event was a true test for the Maui women, who mostly comprise of weekend warriors. Jami Ullrich, the tournament chair, was abuzz with all of the last-minute details. I will say, without question, for a cool event, this was tops. Live Hawaiian music, hula dancers, audio pro on site, huge catering affair, just an immense effort all coordinated by Jami, an accomplished golfer in her own right, but focused on making this event something memorable.  

Before I delve too far into my little essay, I would like to note that here on Maui, we have great sports writers like Robert Collias of the Maui News, who wrote a great news article for this event here.

Now, the job Jami did, in fact the jobs she and all of her volunteers did, was a stellar effort with an awards ceremony to rival any that I have ever seen, including hula performances by Halau Kamaluokaleihulu (Kumu Hula Kahulu Maluo) on stage, eloquent words by speaker Anna Mayeda, of the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge; as well as heartfelt words from speaker Kerry Phillips, a survivor; and the entertaining effort by auctioneer, Pattie Ann Aranio; and lastly awards presentations by the ever affable and gracious host pro Rick Castillo, and scoring done by host head pro Frank Luchowski.  

Jami was on the ball, after the event was over, insofar as putting me straight on making sure special thanks went to Gwen Haa Po, for her awesome leis. Gwen makes all of the winners’ leis by hand, one-by-one, and joins in presenting each player with their prize, including these brilliant floral creations. (I have no idea, but I’d wager that this is one of the great efforts of all for the Maui women, and you probably won’t see anything like this anywhere else. The women of Maui really do it right.) 

This event is one of two Maui women events that really stand out from the pack. It is celebrating 61 years and was summed up nicely in this year’s program:

Honoring our past… How it began… On that day, April 12, 1954, Maui golfers were treated to a fine exhibition by Jackie Yates, then Hawaii’s premier amateur golfer, who teamed with the late John Leong in a four-ball match with the duo of Elizabeth James and Willie Goo. It was on that day also when the idea was brought up to unite the Waiehu Women’s Golf Club and the Maui Country Club Ladies division and inaugurate a statewide invitational tournament. Elizabeth James got the ball rolling and the Maui Women’s Golf Invitational Tournament became a reality in October of 1955. It was held at the same time as the men’s Maui Open Tournament as side attractions to the Maui County Fair. The 36-hole kickoff event, held at the Maui Country Club and Waiehu Municipal Golf Course. The inaugural tournament attracted 33 players and the second event, again held during the County Fair, drew 48 entries. The ladies went on their own after that and the Maui Country Club hosted the 1957 tournament during the Fourth of July weekend. The sponsorship of the tournament alternated between the two local women’s Groups from then on until 2012.

It continues:

Embracing our future….2012. Maui Country Club Ladies Division and Waiehu Women’s Golf Club gave the Invitational up to all of the Women’s Golf Clubs on Maui. A handful of golfers determined not to let this prestigious tournament end started to embrace our future with sponsoring Charities to help build our community and camaraderie amongst women golfers island wide.  From 2012 to 2014 this tournament has raised over $10,000.00 to the Maui Food Bank, while keeping the integrity of this great golf tournament that supports all women golfers State Wide. We hope you will continue to support this tournament for years to come.  Mahalo for helping us “Honor our past and Embrace our future”.

Jami Ullrich is the new standard bearer from what I can see, taking the reins from two Maui women I think most Mauians share a tremendous amount of respect for: Dot Tam Ho and Wilma Vorfeld. I didn’t see Wilma at this year’s Invitational and must give Twiggy, as she is affectionately known as, a call.

Dottie and Twiggy were always inviting me to their events. They would provide me with all I needed to give the Maui women some press, at a time when I was actually doing a monthly newspaper, and the ‘press’ I was able to give had some degree of timeliness. “Thunderhead” was my nickname, Twiggy used to call me that….

But the ties to meaningful causes our Maui Women have demonstrated time and again have always excelled. As I have already mentioned, the women golfers of Maui have a long tradition of using their gifts on our finest fairways to help bring much-needed aid to those who are less-fortunate, and this year, it was the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge on Oahu, that was the focus of everyone’s attention last Sunday….

I was fortunate enough to have a minute with the American Cancer Society’s Anna Mayeda. It was valuable time as she was preparing for the festivities, yet she was most gracious under pressure, which as we all know, was a volunteer effort for all there.  

It is one thing to have a big name charity like the American Cancer Society to bring credibility to an event, but it is wholly another to put a face to it. Like so many things I noticed with the Maui Women, it was the substance of everything that stood out in my mind so much. Rather than just having a logo and a silent auction, the Maui Women humanized the cause for which they were gathered bringing to the podium a young woman named Kerry Phillips, an actual survivor who was the recipient of the very aid all were there to give. It was a heartfelt moment and I was fortunate to have been there to capture it for you.  

In addition to the great cause that the Maui Women supported this week, there was of course golf, and something we just don’t ever see at a golf event: genuine hula.

We live in Hawaii and yet are so often removed from the culture of these islands, complaining about our inability to pronounce street names or recall important historical facts.

The King Kamehameha Golf Club is truly a special venue for golf here on the Valley Isle. It isn’t only about a Ted Robinson father-son collaboration of verdant ribbons of verdant fairways weaving through rocky waterways and sloped terrain, or the immense, mauve-colored clubhouse that can be seen from miles away, with its circular-shaped ballroom protruding out against the dense Waikapu tropical forest and West Maui mountain foothill…. There’s so much more to this unique place… a museum and a tribute to the culture of Hawaii.

The 61st Maui Women’s Annual Invitational Golf Tournament embraces our culture unlike few others here, and the choice to hold it at The King Kamehameha Golf Club was hardly accidental. From the event’s opening blessing and prayer by Clifford Naeole, to the greeting on this year’s program:

“Hawai’i Aloha”
E Hawai’i e Ku’u one hanau e,
Ku’u home kulaiwi nei
Oli no au i na pono lani ou,
e Hauoli e na opio o Hawai’i nei
Oli e! Oli e!
Mai na aheahe makani e pa mai nei
Maui ke aloha no Hawai’i

Nobody does it like the Maui Women.

And that goes for their games too. In 2015 they crowned a Queen in Kimberly Miyamoto. I use that term carefully, and it is not even mine to be credited with.

Last weekend, the winds funneling through our island’s valley formed a circular vortex and wreaked havoc on even the best golfers the Saturday that the opening round was played.

Kimberlie Miyamoto, the “Queen of Maui Golf“, as Taija-Rae Tagalan dubs her in a tribute written for the 2014 Maui Interscholastic League Girls Golf Individual Champion in the Baldwin High School Courier, was unfazed by the stiff tropical breezes that day. It was something else that would get her goat….

“The wind started blowing before the tournament began,” the East Washington University golf team sophomore wrote to me in our post-tournament interview. “We practiced at Kahili at 6:45 in the morning and it was already windy. It got a lot more windy as the day went on,” the 19-year-old three-time champion of this event told me.

I wanted to know if the venue or the breezes had affected her mentally, but she is apparently devoid of the fear factor weakness that most of us mortals possess: “I always approach any tournament with a positive frame of mind,” she explained. “That is what my swing coach Cathy Torchiana, LPGA, has always reinforced in me.” (Cathy is a golf icon in the Hawaiian islands, and in 1999 was inducted into the Women’s Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame after 12 years as head coach of the USC women’s golf team. )
 

 
Kimberlie was playing in one of the event’s four flights, which were organized by age groupings:

• Na Liko (the bud) 16-23
• Na Pua (the flower) 24-54
• Ka Piko (the stem) 55-69
• Kuma (the root or source) 70 and up