In spring of 1984, Waiakea High School golfer Alika Toledo was the individual HHSAA state champion — shooting 71 and 76 for to total 147 at Keauhou Golf Course, while his team won the team state championship by grossing 316 twice.
Now, Toledo is back at Waiakea as its golf coach — and has a chance to lead his young and talented team to another state run. This year, the HHSAA State Championship will be held at Wailua Golf Course on Kauai — the site of Waiakea’s first ever team state championship title in 1983.
Since 1984, Waiakea’s boys golf team has collected eight more state titles — and its girls team has notched three, totalling 14 state titles for the Warriors. WHS has also produced three girls individual state champs, and four more boys state champions since Toledo — three of which were two-time winners (Jarett Hamamoto, Mike Pavao and Troy Tamiya).
Both WHS’ boys and girls golf teams won the BIIF championship last year, and now-senior Dysen Park won the boys individuals. However, the Warriors came up short at state — and are aiming to do much better this season.
“I won BIIFs, so that was nice,” Park said, “but as a team — we struggled at state. Hopefully this year, we can change that.”
Park has been golfing since five years old, and has notched five top-five BIIF meet finishes this season — including two first place finishes, shooting 68 at Hilo Muni and 67 at Waikoloa Village last month. Most of the other top five spots in every meet this season have belonged to his teammates — junior Ryder Ng and the Otani brothers, freshman Jake and junior Noah. The Warriors’ consistency has earned them first place as a team in every BIIF Golf meet this season.
Park recently signed a letter of intent to join the UH-Hilo golf team, which was ranked among the top ten teams in NCAA Division II West in the most recent poll. Jake and Noah’s older sister, Elle Otani, currently plays for the Vulcans’ women’s golf team. Ng and Noah both said that they also aspire to golf in college, and Noah said he would like to also play at UH-Hilo.
“I’m just looking forward to playing golf,” Park said. “UH-Hilo’s a really, really good team. I’m very blessed for coach Earl (Tamiya) to give me a chance to play for them. Hopefully I can play a part in it.”
Toledo said that the Otanis and Park hold the top three best averages in the BIIF. the fourth best average belongs to Kevin Yamashita of Kealakehe High School, then Ng holds the fifth.
“It’s a blessing to get kids who’ve been playing golf their whole life already,” Toledo said. “Whereas Trevor, who’s one of our freshmen, hasn’t even been playing golf for a year — but he’s already doing good for where he’s at. He can shoot in the 90’s, he definitely has a future if he stays in it.”
According to Toledo, working as a team will be the key to succeeding at state this year. Last year, Maui Preparatory won the team championship.
“They were like seven players deep,” he said. “They had seven players that could shoot in the low 70’s to the 60’s. When you go against a team like that — really, the competition is against yourselves. This year, that’s pretty much the format that we’ve wanted to have with our guys. I told them at the beginning of this year ‘I want the competition to be amongst ourselves.’”
The players have taken on that attitude, setting their sights on state.
“I want to play to the best I can,” said Ng. “Hopefully, we can do well in the state tournament. We just need to play good.”
Despite his dominant performance so far, the elder Otani is not yet satisfied and not done challenging himself.
“I feel like I haven’t really hit my full potential,” he said. “I’m actually glad I haven’t. I wanna hit it right when we’re about to play states. As for the team, I think we’re actually playing pretty good. It would be great if we could shoot reds (under par).”
The team has formed healthy internal competition, with the players challenging their selves and each other.
“That’s what we want,” Toledo said. “We want us guys beating each other. It’s been going on this year. Dysen started off this season as out No. 1 man, last week he was out No.4 man. Jake started off this season as our No.4 man, last week he was our No.1 man.”
The final regular season BIIF match will be held Wednesday at Kohanaiki Golf Club, then BIIF championships will be held Saturday at Hualalai Resort. Girls HHSAA State Championships will take place May 9-10th, then boys will be played two days later.
