Alexa Takai, 14, and Brandan Kop, 63, regularly compete at Oahu Country Club. Takai is a rising freshman at Punahou. Kop is in the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame. Takai hits farther, with a disposition even further beyond her years. Kop knows that’s not normal.
He has been around a lot of great players. His grandfather, Guinea Kop, was part of the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame’s inaugural 1988 induction class. His uncle, Wendell Kop, was inducted in 1994. Brandan Kop himself followed suit in 2008, preceded by accomplishments that included a Western Athletic Conference championship and two All-WAC selections in the 1980s.
But around the time Michelle Wie broke onto the world scene as a young teenager in the early 2000s, Kop had a front-row seat. He played alongside a 14-year-old Wie at the Hawaii State Amateur Championship, annually held at the Pearl Country Club. She shot down the center of all 18 fairways and landed on 17 of 18 putting greens. He knew she was one of a kind. Then he met Takai.
“That’s the closest person I’ve seen so far to Michelle Wie,” Kop said.
“Michelle hit a little farther, a little tighter, but Alexa has a better short game. Her wedge and her putter is better.”
Last month, Takai became the second-youngest golfer to
win the Jennie K. Wilson Women’s Invitational, a premier amateur women’s golf tournament that has been held since 1950. Wie won at age 11 in 2001. Comparisons between the two intensify by the day.
Amid the buzz, Takai still has so much more that she wants to accomplish, starting with her appearance at the 115th Manoa Cup match-play championship this week.
She is willing to go to great lengths to win another tournament, and with it, win a feeling unparalleled to any other she has experienced in her young life. Playing well is, in her own words, “addicting.”
“I’d give anything to feel that again, or even more than that,” Takai said.
When Takai and Kop first began their practice rounds at OCC last August, her drive consistently careened short of his. Surely, it was no surprise the strength of an eighth-grade prospect failed to match up with that of a veteran golfer. Takai didn’t see it that way. Kop assured her that she would naturally grow stronger in due time. So Takai expedited the process.
She spent the month of May focused on intense meal prep, balancing chicken, steak, eggs and other proteins with a proportional amount of carbs and fats to add muscle mass. Yes, she cooked many of her own meals. And yes, 10 pounds later, she effectively added 10-15 yards to her tee shot.
“When I’m talking to her, I look at her, I know what she’s thinking,” Kop said. “She’s thinking, ‘Why wait? … I want to do it now.’”
Takai is the youngest of four, and her parents have never held her to a certain standard in golf. She first swung a golf club at 5 years old because it was a fun activity, a family hobby. In the past several years, she’s wanted more from the sport.
Now she has it — more strength, more success and more spectators watching to see what she does next.
“My husband and I, neither of us have had the type of success she’s had in life,” Takai’s mom, Courtney, said.
“Alexa is in a transition period right now, where maybe six months ago or a year ago, not a lot of people knew who she was. And now, she’ll show up at a tournament and people will know her name, unexpectedly. We’ve never had that happen, really.”
To qualify for the Manoa Cup, Takai will need to shoot among the 16 lowest scores across a pool of 31 players in Monday’s qualifying round. Gonzaga-bound Jasmine Wong, who won ‘Iolani its first individual title in the David S. Ishii/HHSAA Girls Golf State Championship a month ago, and Mililani rising senior Kate Nakaoka, who won the Hawaii State Amateur over Takai by two strokes in March, will tee off with Takai at 11:15 a.m. Kop called them the state’s three best girls high school golfers, all of whom will compete on Takai’s home course, if you will.
No female, amateur or professional, holds a lower score at OCC than the 63 she recorded from the blue tees in a practice round on May 26, according to Kop, who witnessed the round along with one of Takai’s sisters. The red tees regularly used in the women’s amateur division are much closer.
Kop said even he has never shot a 63 from the blue tees, the farthest set from the green.
“I just try to play my own game and just get comfortable with playing in front of people and meeting (the) expectations they have on me,” Takai said.
“You can’t really go back. It’s a lot of pressure now.”
