HONOLULU — As a procession of putts refused to drop for James Whitworth in the 114th Manoa Cup Round of 16, the University of Hawaii golfer chided himself silently and, in some cases, not so quietly.
But when a potential winning approach shot on Oahu Country Club’s par-4 No. 18 landed right by the flag, only to spin backward off the elevated green and 30 yards down the hill, he found his moment of Zen.
Whitworth calmly stuck his ensuing chip shot within a foot for a gimme par and Peter Jung, the two-time defending champion of Hawaii’s amateur match play championship, was unable to answer with a long par putt.
The incoming UH sophomore from Carlsbad, Calif., advanced 1 up to face Kahuku’s Kihei Akina in Friday morning’s quarterfinals. The men follow Friday’s 18-hole women’s final between old high school friends Karissa Kilby of Florida International University and Kellie Yamane of Hawaii Pacific University. That tees off at 7 a.m.
“Normally I’d be a lot more mad, but for some reason I was calm about it,” Whitworth said of recovering from the disappointing result of the second shot. “I don’t know why I was calm about it, but I just was, which was great in the moment.”
When he delivered on the next one from 35 yards out, he gave caddie Blaze Akana, his UH teammate, an exuberant high five. Whitworth explained later he didn’t think he’d won right there — he suspected the more accomplished Jung would make his putt to force an extra hole — but it was a relief knowing he’d done everything he could and the pressure was off.
That Jung was a multi-time champion playing in his proverbial backyard was never far from the thoughts of Whitworth, 18, who became a Rainbow Warrior because he had a mutual swing coach with UH’s Scott Simpson.
“I felt like I had nothing to lose,” Whitworth said. “(Jung) is a much more accomplished player than me going into this, so I just understand that he was trying to win three in a row, which must be a very tough task. I had nothing to lose, so I just played as free as I could.”
Jung was attempting to become the first person to win three consecutive Manoa Cups since Francis I‘i Brown won a third of his record nine from 1930 to 1932.
Jung, a Maryknoll School graduate and incoming college junior who is in the process of transferring from Washington State to Utah, was unable to convert many of his own opportunities Thursday.
The OCC member described a weeklong feeling of malaise that he felt held him back, unlike his assertive performances of the last two years on his home course. Even in the top-seeded 20-year-old’s wins over the first two days in the field of 64, he felt something was lacking.
“Hats off to James; he hit the shots when he needed to, the putts when he needed to,” Jung said. “He could have been up multiple times in the round. He had a lot of close putts he didn’t really make. So, I was just hanging in. I didn’t really hit enough shots where I could confidently say I was attacking it. Compared to the past few years … I gotta work a little harder. I didn’t put in the work I needed to. That’s it.”
Whitworth cut Jung’s early lead to a single hole heading into the turn. Neither player could capitalize on opportunities on the trek up the Nuuanu hills on holes 10 through 13, but coming back down on the par-5 No. 15, Whitworth seized on the match’s shifting sands.
Both players hit their second shots into a greenside bunker with a similar distance to the pin. But only Whitworth hit his out cleanly; he got to within 4 feet for a birdie putt. Jung had to putt from the fringe and the match was squared.
The other quarter matchups are University of San Diego’s Evan Kawai against UH golfer and Hilo native Isaiah Kanno; Kailua-Kona’s Katsuhiro Yamashita versus Anson Cabello; and BYU’s Keanu Akina faces Joshua Hayashida. Whitworth and Kihei Akina led the men off at 7:09 a.m.
The winners will then head right back out on the grueling, hilly Nuuanu course for another 18 in the semifinals to set up Saturday’s 36-hole final.
The Akina brothers would not encounter each other unless they make the championship.
A twist of fate led to Karissa Kilby lugging her bag around the slopes of Oahu Country Club this week.
Kilby, a Punahou alumna, was among the leaders in the Manoa Cup qualifying round and was seeded seventh. Her good friend Kellie Yamane, an Iolani graduate, struggled, however, near the bubble of qualifying in the 16-player women’s field. After finishing her round, Kilby went out to caddie for her friend, who faced a playoff to qualify.
“(Yamane) didn’t think she was going to make it, so she went, ‘oh, I’ll caddie for you this week.’ And she ended up winning the playoff, so I didn’t have a caddie, and I’m playing her tomorrow still without a caddie,” Kilby said with a laugh.
But that has not hampered the 20-year-old FIU golfer in the least. Kilby continues to bomb drives up and down the OCC hills, finding confidence that she didn’t have in past instances where she found herself laying up.
Kilby defeated Chloe Jang 2 and 1 in Thursday’s semifinals after smacking her drive 300-plus yards on the 328-yard No. 17, setting up a very manageable chip shot from the apron to eliminate Jang, who sailed her second shot over the green.
Two days prior in the first round, she banged her drive on 17 within 6 inches of the cup, aided by the wind. That gave her confidence to unload again.
Kilby first tried pulling a cart around the OCC hills but ditched that at the turn of her match Wednesday in favor of getting a workout with her bag on her back. She acknowledged she probably could have found a caddie by now but “at this point I think I’m trying to prove to myself that I can do it on my own,” she said.
Yamane, who ousted defending women’s champion Raya Nakao in the first round, beat talented eighth grader Alexa Takai, 3 and 1, by virtue of six birdies.
Kilby lost the championship to Danielle Ujimori in 2019. She reached the semifinals in 2018.
At this point, Kilby considers it a win-win no matter what happens Friday.
“Obviously there’s a little bit of competitiveness because we’re both players. I know that we’re both going to be happy with each other either way,” she said. “It'll end with a hug and someone will say ‘good job.’ ”
Some more shots of the Manoa Cup on Thursday:
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.