HONOLULU — Down 4 strokes against 17-year-old phenom Kihei Akina with just eight holes remaining, Josh Hayashida once again conjured a bit of back-nine magic Saturday to seize the 114th Manoa Cup open-division championship at Oahu Country Club.
Hayashida, 19, a rising sophomore at the University of Hawaii, was coming off a pair of stirring late comebacks over Akina’s older brother Keanu in the quarterfinals and Evan Kawai in the semifinals, both on Friday.
His luck appeared to be on the wane Saturday as he finished the morning round 3-down and continued to trail through most of the afternoon.
Hayashida notched back-to-back birdies on Nos. 2 and 3 in the final round to get within a stroke, but Akina responded with a birdie of his own on No. 5.
Hayashida bogeyed on No. 8 to fall back to 3 down. Akina then birdied on No. 10 to go up 4, his largest lead of the day.
But, once again, Hayashida proved unsinkable, outplaying Akina over the next six holes to take control.
After Akina bogeyed on No. 11, Hayashida birdied the next two holes to move within a stroke. Akina bogeyed again on No. 14 and Hayashida birdied on No. 15 to take his first lead of the day.
Hayashida tapped in a final birdie on No. 16 to go 2 up and both hit par on the next hole to end the drama.
Hayashida is the first active UH golfer to win the event since T.J. Kua in 2009. Jared Sawada and Nainoa Calip won in 2013 and 2014, respectively, after having graduated from the university.
The Manoa Cup victory adds to Hayashida’s impressive list of accomplishments. He was the Hawaii State Golf Association player of the year in 2021 and Hawaii State champion as a senior at Hawaii Baptist in 2022.
Michael Tsai covers local and state politics for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at michael.tsai@charter.com.