HONOLULU — As the rain peppered his face and the wind threatened to dislodge his golf ball from the green, Anson Cabello somehow found calm amid a Nuuanu Valley squall and let his putter fly.
The University of Hawaii golfer from Maui nailed an 11-footer on the 18th hole and executed a big fist pump as he sent his Manoa Cup semifinal match with Kahuku native Kihei Akina to a playoff. After the same stiff wind doomed Akina on the second extra hole at Oahu Country Club, Cabello tapped in for the win and a spot in Saturday’s 36-hole state amateur match-play open division championship.
“I don’t really remember any other putts in those circumstances,” Cabello, a rising sophomore, told Spectrum News. “But I feel like that putt was a culmination of a lot of things, a lot of work.”
[Note: See below for more photos of Friday's open semifinals.]
He will face defending champion Joshua Hayashida, his UH teammate, in Saturday’s 36-hole championship that begins at 7 a.m.
"Josh is a really good player, a really good teammate," Cabello said. "I enjoy being around him as much as I do my other teammates. I’m looking forward to having fun tomorrow, bringing my best and hopefully win the match."
Minutes after Hayashida defeated UH alumnus Zachary Sagayaga at the No. 18 green, 1 up, last year’s runner-up Akina came inches away from setting up the first Manoa Cup final rematch since 1928. He tapped in for a par – impressive considering his drive had settled amid a row of trees near the OCC parking lot.
Akina lives in Utah and is committed to play at BYU. He is widely considered one of the top golf juniors in his class. But Cabello felt he’d grown considerably as a player in all aspects of his game since last they met.
After Akina’s near miss on a long putt on 18, he and Cabello halved the first playoff hole at the No. 1 hole when both got up and down for par. They continued on to No. 2. Akina hit his approach shot to a greenside bunker while Cabello plopped his shot onto the apron.
Cabello chipped up to the fringe. Akina momentarily appeared to seize the advantage when his shot out of the sand appeared to settle within 6 feet – but he watched helplessly as the ball was blown backward all the way down the front of the green.
“It’s really unfortunate that happened, but when I saw that I knew I had to capitalize,” said Cabello, whose par was enough. He beat Tyler Ogawa, 2 and 1, in Friday morning’s quarterfinals to begin a grueling day of golf.
Hayashida, the rising third-year collegian, dispatched UH teammate Kolbe Irei, 5 and 4, in the morning to set up a battle with his best friend, Sagayaga, who finished his Rainbow Warriors career in 2023.
They both expected it to go the distance. It lived up to the billing.
Hayashida, who endeavors to become the first repeat champ since Peter Jung in 2021 and 2022, has felt like a marked man all week.
“It’s a totally different feeling. Everyone’s gunning for you,” he said as he awaited the winner of the Cabello-Akina playoff. “We talk about it throughout the year – come Manoa Cup time, you’re the No.1 seed. You don’t even need to play Monday. … Zach, Kolbe, we all talk about it throughout the year that we play together. It’s surreal I’m back in the finals and have a chance.”
UH men’s golf coach Scott Simpson was all smiles as he watched two of his players gain the final.
That they had to survive some of the toughest conditions of the week to get there made it even sweeter. UH is no stranger to OCC; it trains there on Tuesdays.
“I love them practicing in this stuff,” Simpson said. “Harder the better, the more frustrating the better. You just have to learn to deal with that in golf.”
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.