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Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Friday, February 18, 2000

GOLF WATCH

Flom has soft spot
for Hawaii

FIVE golfers, including University of Hawaii's own Cindy Flom, have played in all 14 Hawaiian Ladies Open tournaments since the LPGA made it a tour stop in 1987, first at the Turtle Bay Resort. Also 14-for-14 with their showing this week are Chris Johnson, Vicki Fergon, Jane Geddes and Hiromi Kobayashi.

For Flom, it's particularly significant because she won the first of her five LPGA tournaments here - the 1987 Tsumura Hawaiian Ladies Open.

"To win my first tournament in Hawaii couldn't have been a greater feeling," said Flom, who played for the Wahine golf team in 1978 through 1980. "I still have the best memories of winning that tournament. If I can win another tournament, I'd like it to be in Hawaii."

The HLO has had six different title sponsors, including Cup Noodles, back after a year's hiatus. After Turtle Bay, the event moved to Ko Olina and then to the Kapolei Golf Course from 1996.

Through it all, the HLO's "Big Five" have been very supportive of the LPGA's tour stop in Hawaii, an event frequently passed up by a number of its top players.

"Every chance I get to come back to Hawaii is good enough excuse for me," Flom said. "I still have strong ties to Hawaii and I really believe in supporting the tournaments that are here. If there's a tournament here, I'm always coming back."

She'll hang around next week to do some whale watching on Maui, and golf on Lanai and the Big Island before playing in the new LPGA Takefuji Classic at the Kona Country Club March 2-4.

"It's a perfect opportunity for me to have a week off and relax," she said. "I've been to Australia the last three years. And I'm looking very much to that tournament at Keauhou. When I was at UH, I won a tournament at Keauhou."

Johnson also will vacation on Maui, doing some snorkeling, and head to Kona as well. She thinks it's great that there's a second LPGA Tour event here.

"This year especially. I'm going to stay the middle week," she said. "I've been here a lot of times and have never gone snorkeling, so that's going to be a good thing for me. And it''s just a good thing for our tour that Hawaii's so supportive."

She remembers the time when there were back-to-back LPGA events in Hawaii, including the Women's Kemper Open at Wailea, Maui, and then at Princeville, Kauai.

JACK'S STILL NIMBLE

It wasn't all play for Jack Nicklaus when he competed in the Senior Skins Game at the Mauna Lani Resort. He also went on an inspection site for the new golf course and lodge he is designing in south Kona, called Hokuli'a - which will be exclusively for owners and their guests of an upscale residential and recreational community.

Hokuli'a already has had more than $100 million in sales and closings, thanks to the Nicklaus-designed course, near the town of Captain Cook and overlooking historic Kealake-kua Bay. Part of it is on the former Greenwell Estate.

Scheduled to open in early 2001, the oceanside course is located in a leeward area protecting it from the usual trade winds characteristic of most of golf courses on the Kona Coast.

"There's no wind at all. Maybe three miles an hour on a year-round basis," said Nicklaus. "It's a nice piece of property and it has great views. The terrain actually goes in a series of benches. Not like most of the property here, which goes right up the slope. There are a lot of nice, natural holes on the golf course."