'AIEA — It took Travis Toyama one hole — three big swings and a monstrous putt on the first hole — to create separation yesterday in the final round of the Hawai'i State Amateur Stroke Play Championship at Pearl Country Club.
The rest of the windy afternoon was pretty much all Toyama, all the time. He started with 16 guys within nine shots of him and ended with a 3-under-par 69 that blew them away. Toyama coasted to his first state stroke-play title by eight shots.
Toyama, a senior on the University of Hawai'i golf team, has some sweet bookends: In 2002, at age 15, he became the youngest winner of the Manoa Cup — the state's amateur match play championship. Three years ago he won it again. He will try for a third this summer at the 100th Manoa Cup.
Like his golf game, Toyama's career is full of magical moments. Yesterday it came in the form of six birdies — three on the front and the final three holes, which only served as exclamation points on his huge victory. His 69 might not sound spectacular, but in the final three days only four players broke par at Pearl. No one else broke 70.
The wind blew scores sky high and golf balls all over 'Aiea. The only time Toyama blinked was Friday. That came on the putting green, where he missed everything outside 3 feet.
"Putting was my biggest problem," Toyama recalled. "It was really rough. ... I've really been struggling with my putter (in college tournaments). From there it gets a lot worse. You get kinda shaky over your iron shots. You want to chip it in because you can't putt. Everything starts with the short game."
Off the tee, Toyama was beyond reproach.
"Travis hit the ball really well," said Neal Takara, who shared second with the Big Island's Chris Igawa. "Especially in this wind you have to hit the ball really solid and Travis did that."
Toyama's grip-and-rip putting style was back on the weekend when he left nothing short. After his cross-green birdie putt on the first hole rattled the cup — "That probably took all the nerves out of me" — he sank a 12-footer at No. 5 and 4-footer at No. 6.
When a string of six pars was interrupted by two bogeys in a three-hole span, Toyama regrouped to drop a 12-footer on the 16th and 6-footer on the 18th. In between, he "blocked" his tee shot way right on the 17th, tried to hit a "cut" shot out of the trees that never "cut" and landed 20 feet from the out-of-bounds stakes on the left, then feathered a flop shot to within inches for an unorthodox birdie.
"On the back nine I started to play a little too defensive," Toyama said. "I was trying too hard to just make pars and not make bogeys. The last few holes I tried to get aggressive and just not do anything stupid."
The no-fear approach was reminiscent of Toyama's riveting Manoa Cup wins and fifth-place finish in last year's Western Athletic Conference championship. The leading-large victory looked like his 10-shot win at the 35th annual Independent Insurance Agent Junior Classic in 2003. That week in New Jersey he broke the record for largest margin of victory set by another guy who won yesterday — Tiger Woods.
For Takara, a customer service representative for Titleist, yesterday was a case of deja vu, and a reality check. At 37, he was older than the combined ages of his playing partners — Toyama (21) and 'Iolani eighth-grader Lorens Chan (13), who finished fourth. Takara was also reliving the 1996 State Stroke Play, when he was second to Brandan Kop by 10 shots.
"It seems to be that when everybody wins by large margins, I finish second," Takara said, shaking his head.
All was not lost.
"The juniors are getting better; a lot younger now," Takara said. "It's a testament to the junior golf programs and the instructors. To be quite honest I'm really happy to see that. When they beat me by eight that means the game will sustain itself."
Toyama and Chan are stark evidence of that. Chan might have the best shot at breaking Toyama's Manoa Cup record this summer, and/or next. He lost in the semifinals last year and has been in contention pretty much everywhere since, coming within a shot of qualifying for the Sony Open in Hawai'i.
The four-time Hawai'i State Junior Golf Association state champion isn't even in high school yet, but he knows what it takes and he saw it in Toyama yesterday. "He played overall fantastic," Chan said.
How can Chan get there?
"He just has to get older," said Kevin Ralbovsky, Chan's coach. "But I like him now because he's goofy and humble."
