The attention in all of golf this week is on Michelle Wie, who makes her professional debut today in the LPGA Samsung World Championship at the Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, Calif., two days after turning 16.

So now's a good time to catch up with David Ishii, the first golfer from Hawai'i to make it big as a pro with a PGA Tour victory in the 1990 Hawaiian Open and more than $8 million in earnings and 14 victories on the Japan PGA Tour.

Interestingly, one of Ishii's victories came in the Casio World Open, a tournament that Wie will play in next month. Ishii won the event in 1987 en route to becoming the first foreigner to win the money title on the Japan tour.

"It's good. She's going to have a pretty good chance of making the cut, " Ishii said about Wie getting an invitation to play against the men in her first appearance in Japan. It also marks Wie's pro debut against the men.

That perhaps should make it an even bigger media circus than this week's Samsung event where, according to an LPGA official, "180 media and counting" have requested credentials to cover the teen phenom.

Wie has yet to make the 36-hole cut in four men's events —the Sony Open in Hawai'i twice, the 2005 John Deere Classic and a Nationwide tour event, the Boise Open, in 2003. She missed by one stroke in the 2004 Sony Open, shooting a final-round 68, the lowest round by a woman in a PGA Tour event.

But Ishii likes Wie's chances in the Casio World Open.

The primary reason, according to Ishii, is that the field won't be as competitive as an American tour event.

"It's kind of an international field with a lot of young players from Europe and the Nationwide Tour," Ishii said.

According to Ishii, the Casio World Open has switched sites this year from the Ibusuki Golf Club in Kagoshima at the southernmost top of Kyushu, the only venue in the first 20 years of the event, to Shikoku, a small island off Osaka.

"The new course is wide open and the long hitters got an advantage," said Ishii, adding that while Wie's length off the tee is only average compared with the men, her distance is more than adequate to handle the challenge.

Ishii wasn't surprised by Wie's decision to turn pro.

"There was nothing left for her to do as an amateur, except maybe win the (men's) public links and get into the Masters, " Ishii said.

"For all the attention she's been getting, now she can get paid for her popularity."

Ishii is home until the end of the month, recovering from a mumps-like symptom that led him to play poorly in the Japan Senior PGA Championship and miss an event the following week.

The doctors in Tokyo diagnosed it as mumps. But Ishii is getting a second opinion from his own physician, awaiting results on a blood test.

Whatever it is, Ishii said he's feeling a bit tired but is feeling better.

Like Wie, Ishii is gearing up for the next chapter in his golf career.

He reached the big 5-0 on July 26 and will try to qualify to play on the PGA Champions Tour next year.

The timing of the Champions Tour National Qualifying Tournament (Nov. 16 to 21) is unfortunate. If he makes the cut and reaches Monday's final round, he has only 24 hours to make it back to Japan in time to join Wie in the Casio field. He'd like to, but he's not thinking that far ahead as yet.

As a winner of a PGA tournament, Ishii has a one-time exemption to go straight to the final stage of the Champions Tour qualifying tournament, a six-round death march.

The odds are against him because only the top seven finishers will earn an exempt status for the 2006 Champions Tour. But he'll take his chances anyway.

"To be honest, I haven't played as well as I'd like to. I'm not playing as well as even some of the guys in Japan, so my expectations aren't that good," Ishii said.

"I really don't know what will happen until that week and if the golf course suits my game. I'm hitting the ball decent and if the scores are around par, I should do OK. But if the scores go lower, last year it was like 19-20 under, that means you've got to make a lot of putts, you've got to make a lot of birdies."

Even if he doesn't make it through the Champions Tour Q-school, Ishii plans on trying again next year, although this time it means having to go to the preliminary stage.

Besides Wie, Ishii is proud of another Punahou School junior — his son, Colan.

The youngster is going with his school's chorale on a concert tour in Italy, including an engagement at the Vatican, during the spring break next March.

So who does Colan get his voice from?

"Must be the mom (Lorraine). Not me," Ishii replied.