Golf has its gym rats, too.

Every day since he was a fifth-grader, Trey Fortucci would hang out at the Turtle Bay Resort's driving range. If he wasn't hitting balls, he'd offer to do any chores to help out in exhange for more time at the practice range or putting green.

It helps, too, that Fortucci lives on the resort grounds, about a 3-wood away from the pro shop.

"Every time I looked, he was there," says John Dowd, a Turtle Bay official involved with the LPGA and PGA Champions Tour events played there.

"Basically, he became a golf rat," said Matt Hall, Turtle Bay's director of golf. "He would offer to help, such as picking up range balls. If it weren't for his age, we'd hire him."

With all that practice time, Fortucci became an accomplished golfer, helping Kahuku High School win the 2006 O'ahu Interscholastic Association boys team championship in his freshman year. And guess where the Red Raiders won the title? At Turtle Bay.

"At the end of the season, he was my No. 1 player," said Joe Joaquin, Kahuku's golf coach, who was looking forward to another great year from the youngster.

So it was a shock not seeing Fortucci at the golf course or in class when school began.

When most of his peers were busy playing in tournaments during the summer, Fortucci was fighting for his life.

He was diagnosed with fibrolamellar carcinoma, an extremely rare form of liver cancer. He recently underwent his second surgery this month, resulting in the loss of more than 50 percent of his liver.

Fortucci was "totally shocked" when he found out about his cancer.

In July, he was hitting balls at the practice range when he first felt a pain in his stomach. He thought it was food poisoning, something he ate.

"We thought he had appendicitis," said Trey's mom, Anne.

After being checked at a hospital, he was given Maalox and sent home.

Still, the excruciating pains persisted.

"He told me he was tired and he started missing dinner every night," she recalled.

Fortucci began losing weight — he has since lost 20 pounds — and played poorly in the state junior championships at the Big Island's Club at Hokuli'a.

"I tried to play, if you could call it playing. I was throwing up all day," he said.

Eleven days after his 15th birthday, on July 14, Fortucci was finally and correctly diagnosed.

"At first, they told us it was terminal," said Ray Fortucci Jr., Trey's father. Trey is Ray Fortucci III, hence the nickname, "Trey."

"He had something nobody thought he had," said Anne, who has come to learn more about fibrolamellar carcinoma than she ever wanted to know. "It's not responsive to chemo(therapy) or radiation. Aggressive surgery is the only thing."

According to Trey's mother, what liver he has remaining is the bare minimum for survival, short of a transplant.

"We're hoping he won't have to have a liver transplant," said Trey's father, a construction manager for D.R. Horton Schuler Homes.

The parents don't know at this point how well Trey will recover, except that "it will be a lifetime of follow-ups," according to Anne.

SIGN ME UP

Trey took up golf seriously when he was 11 after his father gave him his first set of clubs for Christmas. He signed up for professional Lance Suzuki's junior golf program at the Kahuku Municipal Course.

Fortucci then became a fixture at the Turtle Bay Resort where he caught the attention of Hall, Dowd and other workers at the golf course.

Hall couldn't believe how quickly the youngster improved over the years, especially his first year of high school golf.

And watching Fortucci growing up, Dowd could only marvel at the kid's work ethic, making a mental note that, "Some day, this kid could be a professional."

Trey isn't giving up on that goal.

"He's a tough kid. I know he'll be back. I wish him all the best," said Joaquin, well aware than it might be more than two or three months before Fortucci can even swing a golf club.

"I feel like I can come back and play. And be an even better golfer. I have this time to think about how I can become better," Fortucci said.

He rode a golf cart for several holes, even trying to putt a few times, while his dad played a round last Sunday. But even that proved tiring, so he had to stop.

"It's a day-to-day thing. My stamina is still low. But I can't wait until I get back on the golf course," said Fortucci, a 3.0 GPA student in Kahuku's honors program.

"I'd like to use golf as a way to get into college. If that's not the case, at least work at a golf course."

NOTES

Trey has a twin sister, Bethany. "Trey's older by one minute," said Anne, who planned it that way because it was a Caesarean birth. "I wanted Bethany to have an older brother."