Kevin
Hayashi
Golf Professional
Class of 1980
By Steven Ono
Kevin Hayashi is the golf
professional at the Hilo Municipal Golf course. He has been a professional golfer since 1987 and has a list of
over a dozen golf championships, including 2001, 2003, and 2005 Aloha Section
PGA Player of the Year. He also won the
Hawaii State Open in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2003 and was the 2003 Turtle Bay
Resort Match-play champion. All of this
makes Kevin one of the top golfers in the state.
Before becoming the golf pro at the Hilo Municipal, he was the golf
pro at the Mauna Kea Beach Resort Hotel in Waikoloa, and also at Pearl Country
Club in Honolulu. Bridgestone Sports
and Cleveland are his sponsors.
A
member of the first graduation class from Waiakea High School, he remembers a
time when there were only 385 students and 17 teachers in the entire
school. The small Waiakea golf team
helped Kevin develop his interest in golf because he got a lot of playing time
as a starter. His role model is Alan
Yamamoto. Before Kevin started golfing
at the age of 14, he played baseball and tennis.
Kevin
attended both the UH Hilo, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Oregon State
University. During his first year at
Oregon State he studied Pre-med. After
that he moved back to Hawaii and went to the UH mostly majoring in
economics. He worked part time at a
store called The Golf House and started playing in tournaments. During his last year in college, Kevin
started playing in and winning more and more golf tournaments. Pearl Country Club offered him a job as
their golf professional. After
discussion with his family, he decided to leave college and become a
professional. Although he now competes
mainly in Hawaii, his career has allowed him to golf all over the world,
including in such places as Japan and Pakistan.
Kevin
spends a lot of his time teaching people of all ages how to golf, from small
children to adults. He loves playing
golf and he loves to see his students do well.
One of his favorite things to do in his free time is to go fishing.