When is a major not a major?

When it can't draw the best players, that's when.

That's the dilemma facing the Hawai'i State Women Golf Association match-play and stroke-play championships — two of the women's majors locally — which have clearly become victims of Hawai'i's highly successful junior golf program.

Both HSWGA events are missing a majority of Hawai'i's best young players because they're busy competing in tournaments on the Mainland all summer long.

More than a dozen girls, including Kristina Merkle (who won the women's first major of the year, the Jennie K. Invitational), Ayaka Kaneko and Miki Ueoka are playing in the Callaway Junior World Championships this week in San Diego, Calif.

"Junior golf in Hawai'i has really exploded. People like Stephanie Kono don't even come home for the summer," laments HSWGA tournament coordinator Kathy Ordway.

In fact, Kono hasn't played in the HSWGA Match Play Championship since winning the event in 2001 at the age of 11, nor the stroke-play championship since winning back-to-back titles in 2003-04, because of conflicting Mainland events.

"It's in the middle of everything," said Kono, who's in Charlotte, N.C., awaiting next week's U.S. Girls' Junior championship after finishing fifth in the Rolex Tournament of Champions in Colorado last week. Also in the Girls' Junior will be Kaneko, Ueoka, Kimberly Kim, Kyung Kim and Britney Choy.

Kono, 16, remembers being disappointed that she couldn't try for a three-peat in the HSWGA Stroke Play Championship last August because of other commitments. But she came away with a bigger prize that same week, winning the German Junior Masters. She was exempt for that international event after winning the Westfield Junior PGA of America girls' championship.

Kono also won't be able to defend her Westfield PGA of America title because she'll be playing in the U.S. Women's Amateur that week. Neither will she be at the German Junior Masters, because she'll be starting her junior year at Punahou School.

Thus, the small field for the match-play event this week. And Ordway is worried about the HSWGA Stroke Play Championship in less than two weeks at the Mid-Pacific Country Club. So far, only eight entries have been received.

Mari Chun, who won the HSWGA match-play title yesterday with a 4-and-3 victory over Lesly Ann Komoda, says it's too bad that the two HSWGA events can't have larger and better fields, citing scheduling conflicts as the main reason.

"It's unfortunate. It's so hard to find a time when everybody can play. There are always going to be tournaments you are going to miss," Chun said.

And it isn't a matter of changing the dates of the HSWGA majors, Chun added. "There isn't any good time."

No one knows better than Chun, who couldn't defend her 2004 match-play title because she was trying to qualify for a USGA event on Kaua'i held at the same time last year.

"You can't play them all," said Cyd Okino, who last year became the youngest match-play champion, beating Kono's record by little more than a month.

Still, time and circumstances enabled Chun and Okino to be among only 13 entries in the event at the O'ahu Country Club this week. Chun just returned home for the summer after her freshman year at Stanford and almost didn't enter.

Okino couldn't be at the Junior World, even if she wanted to, because the local qualifier was held when she was playing in the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links championship.

Still, the thought of defending her title made her glad she was here instead of San Diego.

Trying to boost attendance in local women's tournaments is one reason why Komoda, who won the 1992 HSWGA Match Play Championship, decided to regain her amateur status. She and two other former professionals, Lori Planos and Mary Bea Porter-King, have decided to become amateurs again to help support HSWGA and USGA events.

"I figure getting my amateur status back will help me play in more events," Komoda said.

Also completing her paperwork to get her amateur status back is Anna Umemura, who moved back home after 4 1/2 years in Florida.

"I need to get my game back first. I haven't played (competitively) in more than two years," said Umemura, 27, who once dominated local women's golf. In 1997 she held three major titles — both of the HSWGA events and the Jennie K. All told, she won three HSWGA stroke-play and two match-play championships at a time when they were really majors.

KIM SQUARED

Kimberly Kim says her right wrist is "100 percent" after she was hit with a golf ball during a practice round in the Rolex Tournament of Champions last week in Evergreen, Colo.

"It was the first time I was ever hit by a golf ball," Kim said.

Kim, who withdrew from the event as a precautionary measure, wanted to be rested and healthy for next week's U.S. Girls' Junior championship.