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By Brett Avery
PGATOUR.com Contributor

Plenty of pre-tournament buzz for this week's Sony Open in Hawaii will concentrate on the improving chance of a local player winning the title.

With Dean Wilson victorious on the PGA TOUR in 2006, Parker McLachlin gaining his playing card and Michelle Wie continuing her maturation the state's chances for success have improved greatly compared to recent years.

All three are products of the 50th state's strong junior programs. But they also grew up idolizing a man who made his biggest mark on TOUR at Waialae CC: David Ishii.

Inside the Numbers

1990 Hawaiian Open Results

Pos. Name Score 1 David Ishii 279 2 Paul Azinger 280 t-3 Clark Dennis 281 t-3 Jodie Mudd 281 t-3 Craig Stadler 281

It was Ishii's 1990 triumph at Waialae that provided a fitting present for his home state in the event's 25th anniversary. He spoke of thinking "about winning the Hawaiian Open for a long, long time" and the impression made upon him in 1966, at age 11, when Ted Makalena became the first native winner.

"There were a lot of us who came from the junior programs in the state in the 1960s and most of us are here in the golf business in Hawaii," recalls Ishii, now director of golf at Pearl CC.

In those days juniors barely competed on the mainland, owing to both financial and logistical considerations. Wie and other juniors spend most of their summers there yet benefit from the state's strong legacy.

Ishii played on the powerful University of Houston squad in the late 1970s and eventually competed on an occasional basis on the TOUR. But he spent most of his career in Japan -- he is of Japanese heritage -- and achieved wide success there.

His breakthrough victory came in the 1985 Tohoku Classic. Two years later he won a half-dozen times, including the Japan PGA and Casio World Open. He led the circuit's Order of Merit -- the last man to take the title with less than 100 million yen -- and gained berths in majors and oodles of limited-field events worldwide.

"I was kind of worn out from all the travel," by the time he entered the 1990 Hawaiian Open, Ishii recalled of his annual pilgrimage home. "I was trying out some new irons and a putter and shot 80 in the pro-am. So I went back to a set I hadn't used in a long time."

Undeterred by his pro-am round, Ishii's formative experience on the islands would prove invaluable. Trade winds gusting to 40 mph raked Waialae during the week, an ideal counterpoint to Ishii's patient game.

He followed an opening 72 with a 67 in severe winds that forced him to settle for the center of every green. One shot out of the lead beginning Saturday's round Ishii rode rejuvenated putting to a 68 that left him one back of Hubert Green's 206.

Green admitted Saturday he expected someone would take the lead and bemoaned the fact that there were several players close behind. He could have used a larger advantage Sunday morning when he hit two balls out-of-bounds, the first at No. 9. That's where Ishii made birdie to reach 9 under par for a lead he never surrendered.

Dean Wilson is attempting to become the first Hawaiian-born player since David Ishii in 1990 to win the Sony Open in Hawaii. 

* 2007 Sony Open Field, click here

Ishii's 72 was plenty good enough when Paul Azinger (several missed putts), Craig Stadler (ditto) and others faltered. Ishii's gutty save from a greenside bunker at No. 17 meant he could coast home with a concluding par.

At the time his 279 was the third-highest winning total in history. "The trade winds threw everybody off their rhythm but growing up in Hawaii it wasn't much of a difference to me," he says. "I never thought I could have won with a 72 the last day."

Just as Makalena's win prodded him, Ishii's triumph motivated a new crop of kids. Wilson, who won The INTERNATIONAL last summer, was a teen then and speaks of Ishii's example in the U.S. and Japan. It took Wilson several years to gain similar stature -- he turned pro in 1992 but didn't land a TOUR card until 2003 -- yet youngsters now look up to his game.

He's joined this season by McLachlin, a UCLA product who was a two-time runner-up last year on the Nationwide Tour before tying for 16th in Q-school.

Ishii would love to carry the state flag this week but missed securing one of two spots in the PGA of America section qualifier. Still, he's hopeful a Hawaiian will experience what he felt that Sunday afternoon 17 winters ago.

"Because there are only a couple of us you want to do well in front of the hometown crowd," Ishii says. "If they get to playing well they really get behind you and you find they're really rooting for you, especially the last nine holes. And that means a lot."