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Kady Pascual

Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"We’re sure those came out fire!"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Make sure you follow:"}]

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YISSYSIS KAHUKU

<title>Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Picture day</title>

Today’s social media find comes from @yissysis, with a sneak peek of Kahuku football's senior photo shoot.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Picture day

We’re sure those came out fire!  Make sure you follow: Content Creator: @yissysis School: @kahukuhigh Photographer: @takoeyephoto Athletes: @isaiahhhx24_ and @kiamaiacampbell For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter!

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Aloha Spirit

Business & Tourism

In response to the August 2023 Maui wildfires, local business owner Jared Nagura quickly responded by releasing merchandise that read “Maui Nō Ka 

 with a lokelani rose design. Proceeds were donated back to the community he calls home as it rebuilds.

“Growing up on Maui, I always appreciated the tight-knit, close community feel that there is here. On a smaller island, the call to that phrase 

Oi,’ I think it really speaks to the people more than anything. And just how we love and care for each other and really fight for that sense of community,” said Nagura, who grew up in Pā

ia on the Valley Isle’s northern coast.

“It’s still considered upcountry but it’s lower elevation. Low enough that us neighborhood kids used to walk down to the beach and go bodyboarding, mess around, you know, normal kid stuff. … And I think [this community] definitely influenced me as I grew older and started a business. I asked myself, ‘How can we be more than just selling things? How can we really impact community?’”

, a Christian apparel brand that includes Hawaiʻi-designed clothing, hats, bags and other small items. Its name derives from the Bible in 1 John 4, meaning “God is Love.”

 told Aloha State Daily that even though he grew up in church as a pastorʻs kid, it wasn't until he went off to college at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa that he took his faith more seriously.

“At first, I wanted to be a lowkey Christian, or believe what I believe, but go out and party and live the way I wanted to in college,” he said. “In my sophomore year, I started feeling more convicted about my faith. So I made a shift, and decided to start going back to church and commit myself more to Jesus. I stopped partying and naturally made different friends, who helped me pursue Jesus more actively and truthfully.”

He met his wife, Tatiana, as a teenager at King Kekaulike High School, and though college took them on separate paths, they later reconnected and dated long distance until they were married.

“So, she’s part of that (faith) journey, too,” 

During his senior year in college, Nagura said he “fell into business,” adding that at the time, he observed 

other clothing companies in the Christian space as “just selling designs and not necessarily contributing to community.”

“We started ordering a few sets of shirts, selling some and giving them out,” he said. “There was one conversation that set the tone for how our brand would move forward. Someone had visited our church and we shared about what we were trying to start and build. They [said], ‘You could be a Christian clothing brand, but you probably won’t grow as big, so maybe you should just be a Christian [owner] with a brand.’ And in my heart and mind, that just didn’t sit right with me.

“We leaned really hard into, ‘OK, we’re going to be the Christian brand here in Hawaiʻi.’”

Aloha Ke Akua Clothing Co. later debuted its 

Iesū (Jesus in Native Hawaiian) Collection

, which today continues to be a best seller. From there, product releases have aimed to point people toward the Bible, while celebrating local culture and making a difference through its pass it forward program, among other initiatives.

“One of my favorite things is when we do end up in a Christian space and we give products away for free, but mention, 

‘You may not need this shirt or hat but maybe someone else does need that encouragement.’” 

. “So, my hope is, keep it if you like. But that you would use it to share Jesus with somebody. I love doing that!”

Aloha Ke Akua Clothing Co. donated around 600 hats to more than 20 different high school Christian clubs statewide. “I guess the idea is just to give and see what God does,” he said.

Not to mention, he’s been quick to jump into disaster relief efforts, like with the Maui wildfires and the more recent Kona Low storms this spring.

“We’re just one family, one small team trying to do all this, so you can’t always go out and be everywhere. But what I can do is design. I can make something that has meaning tied to a relevant event and then sell it, and we’ll donate all the profits back to a nonprofit organization or somebody that is doing something.”

Mālama Pregnancy Center of Maui (now operating as 

In the early beginnings of the business, Nagura said he schooled himself in screen printing via YouTube videos to bring that part of the operation in house and got to work on improving the brand's designs.

Where does he get his creative inspiration? “I like to be inspired by the original creator, so I look to God and I see the world He made. Inspiration from the Bible, so sometimes it

’ll be a verse of Scripture. Or inspiration from some kind of plant or animal here.”

The husband-wife team currently employs one part-time employee, although one of Nagura's goals for the near future is to offer them a full-time position and hire a small team.

“God has blessed us. He’s provided for us through this business, and we’ve been able to impact our community. Within the next year, I want to be able to grow enough that we can also start providing for other families.” 

Aloha Ke Akua Clothing Co. can be shopped 

on Oʻahu; among others. Nagura adds that he is not planning to open his own storefront just yet.

Oftentimes the brand pops up at various events and markets across the Islands, including the 

, which will be held Aug. 20 to 23 at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center. (ICYMI: ASD is an 

 for this year’s four-day event. Come say “aloha” at our booth for free games and prizes. Tickets drop at midnight Aug. 1 

Hawaiʻi's largest annual celebration of locally made products, the 32nd annual Made in Hawaiʻi Festival will showcase more than 500 vendors and expects to attract thousands of shoppers, 

When asked in late June how preparations are going for the festival, 

Nagura noted, “It’s a big one for us. We’re in prep mode right now. All our designs and ideas are finished, so we’re just going to be screen printing in the next few weeks and getting ready.”

According to him, the biz will be selling alohawear manufactured in Hawai

ʻi, along with an exclusive collab/collection (More details to be shared on Instagram).

He added: “As much as we can, we’re trying to 

produce the things that we can’t screen print ourselves. Anything that’s more garment manufacturing, we’re doing our best to have it produced on Oʻahu [with a small family business, Aloha Cut + Cloth]”

 says he and his wife will hit 20 years of marriage and their two young keiki now will be in high school then. He intends on being “really involved in their lives,” sharing his desire for them to be involved in the business, as well.

“The main thing is still representing our faith,” 

 said. “Being a father, growing with children, I look at the verses that share who a man of God is. 'Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church' or as 

'Iron sharpens iron, [so one person sharpens another.]'

 various things that encourage the biblical values in my own life ... I see how other fathers in our community live, too, [and] that’s an area of focus for me right now: to be the best dad and husband I can be.”

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Aloha Ke Akua

Stephanie Salmons

The popular event will be held Aug. 20 to 23 at the Hawai‘i Convention Center. Read on to learn more about some of the changes to this year's festival.

MIHF 081525 entrance

Made in Hawai‘i Festival to return in August

Molokai resident Solana Adachi shares the heart behind this new organization and what it means to be featured at Made in Hawaiʻi Festival on Oʻahu this year. Adachi volunteers as the nonprofit’s interim president, is a full-time business owner and mom to twins.

Molokai Alliance for Native Artisans

Made in Hawaiʻi to feature Molokai Alliance for Native Artisans

<title>Maui-based apparel brand to debut at Made in Hawaiʻi Festival</title>

Jared Nagura, owner of Aloha Ke Akua Clothing Co., “fell into business” during college and credits God to its success over the past decade. The faith-based company, known for designs that blend Hawaiian language and culture with biblical messages, will for the first time be at Hawaiʻi's annual celebration of locally made products come August.

Maui-based apparel brand to debut at Made in Hawaiʻi Festival

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Anna O’Brien’s, the Irish pub in Mōʻiliʻili not far from the campus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, is under new management. The bar and performance space will have its soft opening on Friday, July 10, under the direction of singer and songwriter Tavana McMoore, who goes by the professional name, Tavana.

The pub’s upstairs space is being renamed Tavana’s at Anna’s and will be a listening room, where groups can perform. A new stage and a green room for the band are already in the works. Downstairs, Anna O’Brien’s will remain much the same as it has been in the past, with pool tables and darts, the singer and songwriter told Aloha State Daily.

“I spent my whole career here in Honolulu and have been given so much,” Tavana said. “There's so much talent out there in Honolulu, and I'm hoping that this can serve as a hub where people can come and curate their artistry and perfect it.”

Tavana started playing in this space as a teenager, more than 30 years ago. It is where he has seen some of his favorite bands, he said. The knick-knacks that the Irish pub has accumulated over the years will stay.

“All the cool quirky things about Anna's are still going to be here,” Tavana said. “It's still the same beautiful space it always has been, and I'm just showing up every single day and trying to beautify it.”

The space will continue to have its outdoor patio, he added.

“People can go out and relax outside, as well,” he said.

When the pub’s owners wanted to move on to other things, Tavana stepped in.

“The idea of it not being here was really a not fun thought,” he said. “It means a lot to me to be able to come in here and start to curate shows and try to save the space.”

Just days ago, on Tuesday, July 7, the Irish pub celebrated its 57th birthday. The space will be celebrating that milestone, plus soft opening under new management, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 10. There is a $20 cover charge.

“We got Nick Danger and Ronnie V's flying over,” Tavana said. “We got Local Mojo. I'll be playing there. A lot of other musicians are going to be stopping by. Everybody's talking about it. We're all pretty excited.”

Other events on the calendar for July include 

karaoke, comedy, and musical open mic nights, as well as live performances

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Tavana

<title>Anna O’Brien’s under new management</title>

Learn what will and won't change as this Irish pub — not far from the campus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa — soft opens under new management on Friday, July 10.

Anna O’Brien’s under new management

Alika Garcia

Alika Peleholani Garcia

Viewpoints

As a first responder during the recent Kona Low storms, I know that addressing the impact of natural disasters on human beings comes first: getting people to safety, protecting their homes when possible, and helping them begin the long road to recovery.

But when the rains stop and the flood waters settle, I wear another hat as the executive director of 

. In this role, I can see the otherwise unseen impact of such storms below the ocean’s surface and the way that extreme weather is affecting our nearshore reefs — and the long-term cost of this damage to our communities.

After the Kona Lows were over, I went underwater and saw it clearly: a thousand corals torn loose, flipped, or shattered by storm surge waves and flood debris. And that was just a tiny portion of the reef that encircles our entire island.

Across Oʻahu and throughout our pae ʻāina, the damage is real and widespread.

When corals are ripped out, we lose more than coral — we lose shelter for reef life, habitat for fish, and part of the reef’s natural ability to take the punch out of waves before they reach our shoreline. That loss affects our food systems, livelihoods and community health.

While repairing portions of the reef after the Kona Low damage, Kuleana Coral Restoration recently reached a milestone: 10,000 corals planted and repaired. The number is worth celebrating, but only if we understand what it represents.

A reef is not just coral. A reef is a community: fish moving through structure, crabs sheltering in crevices, shrimp flashing in and out of shade. When coral survives, it becomes structure and structure invites life back. That’s the neighborhood returning.

But we hold a firm truth alongside the celebration: planting corals is not enough by itself. Corals live within a system shaped by what happens above them. In Hawaiʻi, our reefs sit at the ma kai end of the water cycle where everything collects.

Mauka to makai water carries life. It also carries consequences. Our corals live downstream of our choices; what we allow to happen upstream affects the lived conditions for our reefs downstream. A Kona Low is an acute example of that connection, with damage to the land and stress underwater arriving together.

That connection can feel like a mirror of community health, especially for Kānaka communities trying to persist in a modern world that wasn’t built with our best interests in mind. Reefs get smothered, stressed, and pushed by forces bigger than any single organism can solve alone — not unlike the way that our people experience the socio-economic pressures that keep us from thriving in our homeland or that drive us away.

Coral restoration matters because coral is living architecture. It is housing underwater. When reef structure collapses, the smallest relatives lose shelter first. Planting and repairing corals helps rebuild that structure so life can return.

But just like housing on land, simply building more homes doesn’t solve the housing crisis. If the systemic forces that push families out remain unchanged, the crisis continues. Reefs face the same reality. If upstream pressures don’t change, coral planting becomes temporary.

However, “upstream” doesn’t mean “out of our control.” It means that changes must be made earlier in the system; what we choose, what we tolerate, what we prioritize, and what we build together. Durable reef recovery comes when we align coral restoration work in the ocean with actionable mālama ʻāina, from working to ensure that our freshwater streams are cleaner to making smarter shoreline decisions and everything in between.

And the urgency is growing. With oceans trending warmer and the possibility of a strong El Niño pattern this year, coral bleaching and more damaging storms become more likely.

When reefs are already weakened they can’t slow waves as well, and storms can hit our coastline harder. That’s why preparation matters: ready crews, ready communities, and a shared plan to respond both above and below sea level.

Planting 10,000 corals is not a finish line. It’s a beginning: repairing the reef neighborhood while strengthening the human community that protects it.

[{"type":"text","text":"By restoring reefs, our eldest kūpuna, we restore ourselves."}]

This article is reprinted with permission from 

OHA's Ka Wai Ola newspaper: "By Restoring Our Reefs We Restore Ourselves" by Alika Peleholani Garcia, in its June 2026 issue, Vol. 43 No. 6. Read more at 

Reef Repair Project2

Hau‘oli Lorenzo-Elarco and Kenika Lorenzo-Elarco

Hawai‘i History

Rather than framing ocean protection as a burden, we should instead ask why Pacific Island peoples, and our protected and sacred oceans, are forced to bear the unfair burden of industrial fishing, write two members of the Papahānaumokuākea Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group.

Fishing Nets

Community Voices: Commercial fishing is not a cultural practice

Philamer Felicitas

Marine debris from lost or discarded commercial fishing nets to plastic and other waste carried to the ocean by streams, rivers and lakes, does not simply disappear at sea. Much of the debris collected in the massive Great Pacific Garbage Patch north of Hawaiʻi eventually converges on our shores — especially in Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary. Despite relatively little of this waste originating in Hawaiʻi, our local community continues bearing the responsibility of ongoing cleanup efforts to protect one of the most sacred and ecologically significant places on Earth.

Marine Debris KWO Cover

Community Voices: What preserving Papahānaumokuākea means below the surface

<title>Community Voices: By Restoring Our Reefs We Restore Ourselves</title>

When corals are ripped out, we lose more than coral — we lose shelter for reef life, habitat for fish, and part of the reef’s natural ability to take the punch out of waves before they reach our shoreline. That loss affects our food systems, livelihoods and community health, says Alika Peleholani Garcia, executive director of Kuleana Coral Restoration.

Community Voices: By Restoring Our Reefs We Restore Ourselves

Kam Napier Headshot

A. Kam Napier

Columnists

Government & Politics

If you’re a street junkie, shooting up heroin in Chinatown, the State of Hawai‘i has your back. It’ll take our tax dollars and turn them into clean needles, so you can keep on shooting safely.

Fentanyl addict? Go for it! Chances are you’ll never get busted for public intoxication (though it’s a crime), or possession (a crime), and if you overdose, the state will once again turn tax dollars into Narcan to save your life. All your emergency rooms visits? Not to worry! “The people” have you covered with their tax dollars and inflated insurance premiums.

If you’re an alcoholic, the State of Hawai‘i just doesn’t care. Legislators drink, after all, they’re not going to go after their own Heineken and Merlot. Just don’t drink and drive, that’s the only area where we see public policy put any time and money. Everyone seems perfectly confident that ID checks at the liquor store are keeping booze out of the hands of children.

Love pot? Lucky you live Hawai‘i! Hawai‘i loves pot and Hawai‘i loves you! It’s de facto legal, based on how often you can smell pot in the open. And it’s trivially easy to go the law-abiding medical marijuana route. Tell a doctor you’re anxious, get a prescription and it’s off the pot pharmacy you go. Enjoy! After all, we’ve hashed this issue out for years now and all sensible people agree that drug prohibitions never work. You have to respect people’s choices and just legalize and tax their habit.

But if you’re a smoker who’d like to quit smoking cigarettes by going to a safer but similar alternative, this same State of Hawai‘i has just two words.

, Gov. Josh Green just signed a law that as of January 1, 2027, will ban “99.9% of disposable vapes” in Hawai‘i. Flanked by public health officials and the obligatory Child For Whom We Do This, he positively beamed with pride.

Over what, exactly? Doctor Governor Green should be aware that if harm reduction works for hard drugs, it certainly does with nicotine. The UK’s NHS (formerly known as the National Health Service), which is beloved by American Democrats as an ideal model of universal health care, has 

“In recent years, e-cigarettes have become a very popular stop smoking aid in the UK. Also known as vapes or e-cigs, they're far less harmful than cigarettes, and can help you quit smoking for good. … Many thousands of people in the UK have already stopped smoking with the help of an e-cigarette. There's evidence that they can be effective. A 2021 review found people who used e-cigarettes to quit smoking, as well as having expert face-to-face support, can be up to twice as likely to succeed as people who used other nicotine replacement products, such as patches or gum.”

Our reporter asked Green about that. He replied with skepticism, saying, “The biggest problem has been getting an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers hooked,” Green said. “Society has found ways to quit traditional cigarettes through medical means, through behavioral techniques; we should lean on those.”

Does he even hear himself? He said this while signing an e-cig prohibition law. Not medical means, not behavioral techniques, no, just the ban hammer. Meanwhile, actual tobacco cigarettes, the really dangerous ones we didn’t ban, remain perfectly available.

Then Green put Lola Irvin on the spot for further comment on our question. Irvin is administrator of the state Department of Health’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division. As we reported, she said adults who have concurrently used traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes are less likely to successfully quit smoking, while young people who begin using e-cigarettes are more likely to transition to smoking traditional cigarettes.

[{"type":"text","text":"So much for harm reduction!"}]

Irvin seems unaware of the NHS findings I shared above about people successfully using e-cigs to quit tobacco cigarettes or reduce their intake. There are other studies.

Efficacy and Safety of E-Cigarette Use for Smoking Cessation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

,” for example, published in 2023 at The American Journal of Medicine. Conclusion: “Nicotine e-cigarettes were associated with increased smoking abstinence in comparison with non-nicotine e-cigarettes. Furthermore, nicotine and non-nicotine e-cigarettes increased abstinence compared with conventional smoking cessation therapies, and the absolute risk of [Serious Adverse Events] was low across all trials. Overall, these data suggest e-cigarettes appear to be more efficacious than conventional nicotine replacement or behavioral smoking cessation therapies.”

, published last November. “Nicotine e-cigarettes can help people to stop smoking for at least six months,” it concludes. “Evidence shows they work better than nicotine replacement therapy, and probably better than e-cigarettes without nicotine. They may work better than no support, or behavioral support alone, and may not be associated with serious unwanted effects.”

As for her arguments that e-cigs and vaping makes teenagers more likely to take up smoking real tobacco cigarettes, there are indeed studies that find teens given to try vices will try both vaping and smoking, sometimes in that order, sometimes the other way around. These studies find they’ll often also try pot and booze.

When you measure what youths actually do, however, the astonishing and wonderful fact is that 

peaked in 1997 at 36.4%, considerably higher than the adult rate that year of 24.7%. By 2021, the youth smoking rate dropped to just 3.8%, well below the adult rate of 11.5%.

That’s an 86% decline in just 24 years, across all ethnicities, sexes and grade levels.

And it has dropped even more since then, despite the arrival of e-cigs and vaping. As of 2024, according to the 

, just 1.4% of high school students reported any use of tobacco cigarettes.

, found that from 2022 to 2025, e-cigarette and tobacco cigarette use among youth further declined while nicotine pouch use remained low and stable.

In other words, we won the war on youth smoking, without any prohibitions at all. When our governor says that "an entire generation … innumerable middle schoolers and high schoolers" have just been "hooked" on nicotine, he is flat out lying. The exact opposite is true. 

Rather than declare victory and keep on with existing, obviously effective policies, Hawai‘i snatched a crisis from the jaws of success and enacted this ban.

Because they did so in part to “protect our keiki,” they had a student speak at yesterday's press conference, Maya Butts. The bathrooms at her school, Kalaheo High School, she said have become just “places to vape.”

That’s surely against school rules and is certainly already illegal, so this sounds like an enforcement problem to me. Except the enforcers failed to uphold existing law. Then she said:

“I’ve watched my smart, athletic friends completely lose their motivation. They got hooked on these devices that taste like candy, move on to other substances, then lose their spark altogether.”

I hate to break it to Butts, but if vaping makes her schoolmates lethargic and lazy, they aren’t vaping nicotine. They’re vaping pot.

But the ban is about more than health and protecting kids, Green said, and the text of the legislation argues. It’s about protecting the environment. In each disposable vape is a battery and these batteries are getting into the environment, they asserted, without data.

Setting aside the fact that I’ve never seen the gutters lined with thrown-away vapes the way one used to see cigarette butts, I’ll just note that this is the same state government that is forcing us to import batteries by the tons for our carbon-free solar future. A half-ton battery in every EV. Batteries the size of a Matson cargo container for the solar farms. All with no plan for their disposal or recycling.

OK, so if you dig into facts and find that there is no youth smoking crisis, and the stated rationalizations for the ban range from transparently bogus to logically inconsistent, what’s really going on here?

[{"type":"text","text":"Class warfare, that’s what."}]

Vaping nicotine is, by and large, a lower-middle class and working-class vice. Construction laborers, single moms working two or three jobs, people who ride the bus. People who rent. They have ambitions and aspirations constantly thwarted by Hawai‘i high cost of living and ridiculously unnecessary housing shortage.

They’re tired, they’re stressed. They turned, at some point in their lives, to Kool Milds and Marlboro Lights to deal with it all. They know smoking is bad, though, but quitting is hard. Smoking is a pleasure, it’s a consolation. It both calms anxiety and sharpens concentration.

Then, miracle of miracles, technology gave them a better choice. Tobacco-free nicotine they can inhale for the same soothing, sensual pleasures they got from smoking, with none of the known carcinogens, none of the pilau smell.

On the other hand, we have the upper-middle class and those who aspire to that status. Your governors, legislators, health department careerists and high school faculty. People with social capital and clout, if not vast wealth beyond the equity in their home that they own. Few to none of these white-collar, college-educated professionals ever smoked, or quit years ago. They know better.

[{"type":"text","text":"They took one look at vaping and thought, in unison:"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“That looks stupid. That looks tacky. That looks low-class.”"}]

That’s it. That’s the whole mindset. All the people who pushed this ban won’t say it, because they know how it sounds. No one wants to be seen as a snob and a Karen, they want to hide that. So they prop up children as human shields, gin up a non-existent crisis and use health and the environment as fig leaves.

All those smiling faces at that press conference? That’s the look of people gloating in triumph.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We took something stupid away from the stupid people! Yay, us!”"}]

That’s all that happened yesterday, and Hawai‘i is a better place as a result. For them.

A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.

Vapes i Stock 2232713126 16x9

<title>Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's fraudulent vape ban</title>

On Tuesday, Hawai‘i Gov. Josh Green signed into law a ban on "99.9% of disposable vapes." It's a move totally at odds with the harm reduction strategies the state uses for all other vices, argues ASD Editor in Chief A. Kam Napier. And it's in response to a non-existent crisis, in that teen smoking and vaping is the lowest it's ever been in a quarter century.

Pipikaula Corner: Hawai‘i's fraudulent vape ban

IMG 1445

Rick Hamada

Sports

The recent announcements of professional golf events exiting Hawai‘i unfortunately left us without a seat at the PGA table.

[{"type":"text","text":"The operative word is unfortunate. "}]

, the demise of the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua on Maui. It seemed the decision to halt the play in 2026 was based on Valley Isle water issues. The lack of water caused the deterioration of the Kapalua golf course which rendered it unplayable. This was the official explanation from Tour officials in justifying the ending of the PGA Tournament of Champions which has led off the annual PGA season since 1999.

[{"type":"text","text":"But was that the only reason? "}]

Rumors and speculation surrounded the exit of the PGA Sony Open, played at Wai‘alae Country Club on O‘ahu, when the Sentry ended and Sony, the tournament sponsor, did not renew its commitment to continue before its current contract expired. There were no water issues for Waialae; no logistical issues. But there were issues with the PGA Tour itself.

This is despite the fact that PGA golf featuring The Sony Open (and other titles) was first played in 1965 and made Wai‘alae Country Club its official home since 1971. The Sony Open personified the tradition, history, longevity, and legacy that the game celebrates. After 56 years, it came to an abrupt and unceremonious end.

I believe Hawai‘i PGA golf is the victim of the reformation of the tour and the game itself.

A benchmark in this reformulation of the professional game can be found on a golf course in Arizona. Specifically, it can be found on the 16th hole of this Arizona golf course.

That course would be TPC Scottsdale and, yes, that would be Scottsdale, Arizona.

The tournament is the Phoenix Open, better known by the sponsor's name, The Waste Management.

How can this tournament lead to the most radical and unprecedented changes in professional golf?

The game of professional golf is like no other professional sporting endeavor. It's not about teams but individuals. There are no referees, only players are trusted to know and adhere to the rules and to self-report any infractions. There is an etiquette along with expected sportsmanship during and after play that differentiates the professional game from all others. These fundamentals are ideally emulated by amateurs and there's a level of conduct expected even during casual play.

Except on the 16th hole of TPC Scottsdale during the Waste Management tournament.

It's on this stadium par-3 where all conventions are gleefully thrown out the window. The seating layout creates a 

. When the gates open, fans will make a mad dash running to the 16th hole just to get a seat. It's here where you'll find more beer and beverage sales than you will anywhere else. Music blares and everybody is up and dancing or the unrecognizable equivalent. Yes, it's a party.

We fret locally about what Hawai‘i might've done wrong to lose major golf tournaments, but ASD opinion columnist Rick Hamada says that changes within the golf industry itself made the loss inevitable.

Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Picture day

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

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Hawai‘i Scene on Social: Picture day

Authors

Kady Pascual

Social Media & Marketing Manager

More in Hawaiʻi Scene on Social

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