Matched with an opponent who was as confident as he was consistent, Dalen Yamauchi got a glimpse of how others must have felt like when they played him the past four days.
Tyler Ota never trailed after an early birdie Saturday, and he picked up steam and rolled to a 5-and-4 victory in the 36-hole final of the 107th Manoa Cup at Oahu Country Club.
“He birdied 5 and 6, and that really got him going,” Yamauchi said. “He was playing with a lot of confidence, I could tell.”
Ota won the state amateur match play championship for the first time, four years removed from a runner-up finish at the HHSAA tournament while at Moanalua, where he was a two-time OIA champion. He led by two strokes after the first 18, then made only one bogey with four birdies on the final 14 holes, pulling away even as Yamauchi began to improve his play.
Yamauchi, a Waiakea graduate, is the third former UH-Hilo golfer to finish runner-up in the event in the past four years.
Fast starts had been Yamauchi’s calling card during his five victories in match play. He hadn’t trailed in the tournament until he bogeyed the par-4 10th hole, and bogeys on Nos. 12 and 13 increased his deficit.
“I just could never catch up to him. When I needed to make a putt or shot, I couldn’t make them,” Yamauchi said. “I just didn’t have it.”
He played the first 18 holes at 2-over, and went even-par on the final 14. Yamauchi trailed by as many as six shots until a birdie on the 31st hole. But at that point he needed to win every whole, and when each made par on No. 32, Ota walked away with the championship.
Yamauchi still has one semester left before he can graduate, and if he decides to turn pro after that his fourth and deepest run at the Manoa Cup will have been his last.
“Former teammate Blaine Fujimoto was my caddie all week and did a great job,” he said. “The course was still in great shape.”
His next stop is the Pearl Invitational later in the month at Pearl City Country Club.
