Hawaiian Open Has Rich History Worth Remembering
When the 2019 Sony Open in Hawaii kicks off this week, with its laid-back island vibe, the pros competing at Waialae Country Club will be treated to one of their favorite stops on the PGA Tour.
Though a mainstay of the Tour since 1965, the tournament in its current incarnation almost never came to be.
The origins – initially successful – date to the late 1920s. The event was the brainchild of the Territorial Hotel Company, which owned the Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki and wanted to publicize the exotic pleasures of the islands, which had been a U.S. territory since 1898 and were still decades from statehood.
In early 1927, as workers were shaping Seth Raynor’s design into the course at Waialae, a company executive named Paul Winslow wrote to Jack Malley, the secretary of the Southern California PGA, inviting “the sparkling entourage of golf pros who make an annual winter sweep of the United States.”
The Royal Hawaiian covered the visiting golfers’ steamer expenses on the Matsonia, a trans-Pacific liner that catered to wealthy American families. Hawaii’s tourist bureau pledged to help stage the tournament, and local merchants raised money to make the entire package enticing to mainland stars.
Much to the relief of tournament sponsors, 15 leading mainland pros accepted invitations to play in the inaugural Hawaiian Open in 1928. They included Tommy Armour, winner of the 1927 U.S. Open, and future major champions Craig Wood, Olin Dutra, Billy Burke and Horton Smith. They embarked in San Francisco en route to Honolulu.
When Armour checked in at the Royal Hawaiian – a grand Spanish-Moorish style hotel clad in pink stucco and overlooking the beach – he turned to a familiar face and enthused about the tropical splendor.
“Scotty,” Armour said to D. Scott Chisholm, who as associate editor of The American Golfer had drawn the plum assignment of covering the event, “I wish this tournament was 144 holes instead of 72.”
A field of 33 players, divided between visiting stars and Hawaiian pros and amateurs, competed on the new course at Waialae. Roughly 1,000 spectators, most of them Hawaiians, turned out for the opening round on Thanksgiving Day. They marveled at the prowess of not only the mainlanders, but also one of their own: Francis H. I’i Brown, a Hawaiian amateur champion, who served in the Territorial Senate and came from one of the islands’ most prominent families. Brown shot a 1-under-par 71 that put in him in second place, two strokes behind the visiting “Wild” Bill Mehlhorn.
Mehlhorn, whom Ben Hogan would describe as the best golfer from tee to green he ever saw, went on to tie another mainlander, Fred Morrison, at 3 over after 72 holes, and prevailed in an 18-hole playoff. The victory earned him $1,500. The total purse was $5,000.
After the Depression came war, and nowhere in the 48 states were the effects of World War II felt like they were in Hawaii. Pearl Harbor lay just 15 miles west up the coast from Waialae. The Royal Hawaiian was even closer. The U.S. Navy requisitioned the hotel for the purposes of R&R. Military defenses were stationed along the coastline, including at Waialae. Hawaii was placed under martial law.
The following year, a contingent of mainland pros traveled to Oahu once again. This time they included Gene Sarazen, the dapper and diminutive professional from Westchester County, New York, then a three-time major champion. The Open was held in mid-November 1929 – barely two weeks after the stock market crash.
On the final day, a large gallery followed the threesome of Wood, Smith and Tomekichi Miyamoto, the Japan Open champion, as they vied for victory. The long-hitting Wood, who reportedly belted drives of 340 and 350 yards, won by three strokes. He pocketed $1,500 for the victory, plus $100 for shooting the tournament’s low round, a 69.
In assessing the week, however, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported that the tournament had failed to prove a financial success. But, in boosterish fashion, the paper was quick to proclaim that movies taken of the final round would be shown around the world.
“Hawaii’s fame as a sport center has received one more big push,” a columnist wrote. A headline beamed, “Prospects Good For Another Big Open Next Year.”
The Great Depression derailed those hopes. After booming in the Roaring Twenties, tourism plummeted. The exoticism of a Hawaii vacation now seemed an unthinkable luxury. Its business moribund, the Territorial Hotel Company declared bankruptcy.
Not a single mainland pro made the journey for the 1930 Hawaiian Open. A shortage of boats to Honolulu from Los Angeles and San Francisco and conflicting dates of stateside tournaments were to blame, the Hawaii newspapers reported. The event moved to Maui Country Club and featured a 20-man field consisting of four players from each of five Hawaiian clubs. It would be years before U.S. pros returned.
After the Depression came war, and nowhere in the 48 states were the effects of World War II felt like they were in Hawaii. Pearl Harbor lay just 15 miles west up the coast from Waialae. The Royal Hawaiian was even closer. The U.S. Navy requisitioned the hotel for the purposes of R&R. Military defenses were stationed along the coastline, including at Waialae. Hawaii was placed under martial law.
In 1947, two years after the war and 18 years since mainland pros had last played in the event, an effort succeeded in bringing them back to the Hawaiian Open. Attracted by flights offered by United Airlines and Pan Am and fundraising that produced a $10,000 purse, many leading pros of the day decided to make the journey. The field included Ed “Porky” Oliver, Lloyd Mangrum, Vic Ghezzi and the English stars Max Faulkner and Dai Rees, who had been in the United States to compete in the Ryder Cup in Portland, Ore.
Playing before estimated crowds of 15,000, E.J. “Dutch” Harrison, a rangy pro from Little Rock, Ark., shot a blistering 13-under par to win by three ahead of fellow American Johnny Bulla.
Trevino remembers the late Phil Rodgers calling himself the mayor and presiding under the banyan tree right off the beach. “Hey, Mex, it’s your time to buy a round,” he’d say.
Mainland pros returned to Waialae in November 1948, but despite impressive play by Cary Middlecoff, who fired a third-round 63 on the way to victory, the Hawaiian Open stood on infirm ground again. Attendance was somewhat thin, and proceeds from ticket sales failed to cover the investments of local sponsors.
In 1949, the tournament reverted once again to a local affair. The leading mainland pros declined invitations, citing their travel to the Ryder Cup in England that September. But the Hawaiian Open’s modest prize money likely also played a factor, as Harrison, a U.S. Ryder Cup team member, traveled even farther to play in the more lucrative Philippines Open that November.
It wasn’t until 1965, at the height of the post-war boom and six years after Hawaii’s admission as America’s 50th state, that mainland stars returned to Waialae. Leading the effort to underwrite the tournament were United Airlines – which was marketing Hawaii as “our little corner of the world” – and Anheuser-Busch.
Although golf’s Big Three – Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player – chose not to come, the field boasted plenty of stars, including Chi-Chi Rodríguez, Billy Casper and Dave Marr. This time, the $50,000 purse was augmented by a $10,300 contribution of television funds from the PGA Tour, a lifeline that would only grow stronger in the years to come.
The new incarnation of the Hawaiian Open proved an instant hit with Tour pros, many of whom brought their wives. The days of traveling with an entourage – private chef, trainer, swing coach, psychologist – as many players do today, were a long way off.
Rodríguez and his wife, Iwalani, would host a luau every year on the Tuesday of tournament week at her family home in Waimanalo on the windward coast of Oahu. The couple met after Chi-Chi watched her perform as a hula dancer one night at the El San Juan Hotel in his native Puerto Rico.
“In those days the Tour was different,”Rodríguez recalled. “We were all a family. Lee Trevino used to go to the luau, and Ben Crenshaw used to go. Miller Barber. We had all of them. Dave Marr … ”
“ ‘Mr. Aloha,’ Danny Kaleikini, would come and sing. There would be hula dancers, beers and cocktails, a pig roast. Drawing a crowd of Tour pros and their wives wasn’t difficult.
“They looked forward to that more than the tournament,”Rodríguez said laughing.
Trevino made his first appearance in 1966, after growing up in Texas listening to radio shows broadcast from Waikiki.
“That was a big deal for us back then to go to Hawaii and play golf,” Trevino said recently. “It was like a vacation and a golf tournament.”
Trevino remembers the late Phil Rodgers calling himself the mayor and presiding under the banyan tree right off the beach. “Hey, Mex, it’s your time to buy a round,” he’d say. No problem, thought Trevino. “I was used to buying a round of 50-cent beers,” he said. “I didn’t realize the damn drinks were 10 dollars apiece.”
Trevino made a dear friend on his first visit, a native Hawaiian pro named Ted Makalena, who had grown up caddying at Waialae.
“I met him when I went there and I fell in love with the guy,” Trevino said. “He was dark like me – we kind of looked alike. I have a lot of BS; he had some BS. We were playful. He had a lot of charisma this guy. He was very easy to get along with. And he was a sweetheart. He was an absolute sweetheart.”
Makalena ended up winning that Hawaiian Open and setting a tournament scoring record of 17-under par that stood for years. He became the first Hawaiian to win when the field included mainlanders, validating his victories for five years in a row, from 1960 to 1964, when only islanders competed.
Makalena and Trevino became fast friends. Back in the States, the islander and mainlander traveled the tour together in Trevino’s ’65 Plymouth station wagon. Whenever Trevino would stay out late the night before a round, Makalena would go looking for him to tell him it was time to go to bed. “He knew he could always find me at the nearest bar,” Trevino said.
In September 1968, Makalena died in a swimming accident while he was with his wife and four children at Kuhio Beach in Waikiki. He was 34 years old. He and Trevino had been together at the tour stop in Philadelphia three weeks earlier.
“Ted didn’t qualify,” Trevino recalled. “We had dinner together that night and then he flew home, and I never saw him again.”
Two months later, Trevino went back to the Hawaiian Open with a heavy heart. He hired Makalena’s brother, Harry, as his caddie – and won the tournament. Trevino donated $10,000 of his winnings to establish a trust fund for the education of Makalena’s son, Ted Jr.
The Hawaiian Open continued to be a cherished week on Tour. “Everybody that I knew looked forward to going over there,” said Tom Shaw, an Oregonian who won the tournament in 1971.
Shaw recalled staying by the beach, and surfing, riding outrigger canoes and playing Frisbee with his fellow pros, many of whom stayed an extra week.
“I loved Hawaii,” he said. “When I first started, I’d buy a one-way ticket hoping I wouldn’t have to go back.”
The tournament has only solidified its place on Tour ever since. United Airlines became a title sponsor in 1991 until Sony assumed the role. As with all Tour events in the past generation, the purse has grown tremendously, to more than $6 million today. Last year’s winner, Patton Kizzire, took home more than $1.1 million.
For millions of golf fans on the mainland watching at home in prime time, the Sony Open’s sunny images of hula dancers, surfers and swaying palms will offer a welcome escape from winter. A tournament that began in fits and starts is clearly in full swing.
(Main image: Waialae Country Club, Sam Greenwood/PGA)