This family’s ties Ron Castillo loved golf. Always did. But little did he know that his passion for the game would become the springboard that would catapult his children into successful careers in golf.
are on the links
A love of golf helps
unite the Castillo clanA TRUE CLUB HOUSE
Randy Cadiente / rcadiente@starbulletin.com
"Golf is kind of a way of life for me," said Castillo, who turned 65 on Tuesday. "And my kids have adopted the same spirit about it. But golf is not just an occupation with them. It's a game they really get involved with. They really like it. They like being around it. They like teaching it. They like being around people that play it."
"I know that now," added Castillo, whose wife, Dorothy, is also a golfer. "But I didn't realize it was going to happen. I never forced them into making golf their career. Nor did I push them to become golfers.
"Golf was a special thing to them. I'm sure I had some influence but I wasn't aware of it."
Rick is the oldest of Castillo's five children. At 42, he is the senior head pro at the Wailea Golf Club on Maui.
Lori, a year younger and the only girl of the five, is a sales rep for PING, Inc. -- a manufacturer of golf clubs -- and also lives on the Valley Isle.
Ron Jr., 40, is the head pro at the Hapuna Golf Course, a position he has held since 1992.
Michael and Joey, the youngest of the family at 39 and 37, respectively, are professionals at Poipu Bay on Kauai.
All of them loved sports and were good athletes. But when your father is a golf pro, as Ron Sr. was at the Hawaii Kai Golf Course at the time, their interests naturally gravitated to golf.
"I kind of led the horse to the water," Castillo said. "It was up to them to drink it."
Michael, said his father, was a golf fanatic when he was younger. So much so, that when they would get to the Hawaii Kai golf course during the wee hours of the morning, Michael would lace up his golf shoes, play 72 holes on the executive course, hit balls in between, and never took his shoes off until they would go home late in the evening.
Joey, the elder Castillo added, was the most talented because he was the biggest, the strongest.
And Lori was far above the rest for the inner drive you need for the game, he said.
But they all had their strengths, Ron Castillo said.
"My oldest boy was kind of the leader," said Castillo, who is the Director of Instruction for the Golf Action Academy at the Bayview Golf Park. "He was the role model for the rest of the boys. He made the rules and they had to follow."
Rick set the standards high for the rest of his siblings.
A member of the PGA, he was director of the Aloha Section PGA from 1992-96, named the PGA/GMDA Merchandiser of the Year in 2000, and has seen the Wailea Golf Club earn several national and international awards -- for excellence in golf design, best new courses and top golf resorts, to name a few -- under his stewardship.
Not to be outdone, Rick's brothers and sister put together their own impressive resumes.
>>Lori is a Junior World and USGA Junior champion, a four-time winner of the Women's Hawaii Open State, and a LPGA teaching professional.
>> Ron Jr. is the 2000 National Club Professional Sectional and 1998 Aloha Section Match Play champion.
>>Michael is president of the Aloha Section PGA, and also is the 1999 PGA Junior Golf Leader of the Year, the 1998 Merchandiser of the Year and a 1982 Junior College All-American.
>>And Joey is a Hawaii State Junior champion as well as an All-American at El Camino Junior College.
"It was a matter of spending time with your dad," said Lori. "We all played different sports but golf was the sport that we played together."
The elder Castillo agreed.
"It's a common denominator for all of us," he said. "We would rather play with each other than anybody else. Even when they were little. We would throw the balls up and find out who your partner is. It didn't matter who you would get. Everybody knows, it's an unwritten rule, we play one way and that's all the way."
For Ron Castillo, it became his way.