Flo Miyasaki has been playing so well recently that one of her golfing companions yelled out to her, "Hey, old lady, act your age."

It was funny because it was a fellow octogenarian who said that in jest to the 84-year-old Miyasaki.

Miyasaki was one of six 80-year-olds who didn't act their age by playing in the Hawai'i State Women's Golf Association Senior Championship at Barbers Point two weeks ago.

The others are Elaine Lee and Marian Williams, both 84; Cathy Kobayashi, who'll be 84 next month, and Annette Kono and Barbara Hamamoto, both 80.

They didn't win any of the top prizes, but they were honored by the HSWGA for competing in the tournament and for their love of the game.

They're not Stephanie, Ayaka and Kimberly in ability. But they're just as enamored of the game of golf as Hawai'i's talented teens.

"I love it," said Lee, the oldest of the 84-year-olds. "My husband (Donald) says that I live for it."

The others agree, recognizing that it's something one can play late into the golden years, unlike other sporting activities.

Hamamoto, a retired school teacher, used to play a lot of tennis until she developed a back ache. Her neurosurgeon advised her not to play tennis any more.

So she turned to golf when she was 50. Why golf?

"He was a golfer," Hamamoto said about her physician. She needed no second opinion.

Lee and Kobayashi were also in their 50s when they first took up golf. They each had four children, keeping them busy at home.

"In those days we had to stay home and raise our kids," said Kobayashi, who got her first set of golf clubs "for your old age" from her husband, Clifford, a retired pediatrician and Mid-Pacific Country Club member, told her.

Trouble was, Kobayashi didn't know if she needed right- or left-handed clubs.

"I eat and write right-handed, but do everything else left-handed," she said. So she went to Jimmy Ukauka and tried hitting from each side.

"You're a left-handed," the late Hawai'i Hall of Fame golfer told her.

Turns out Ukauka was also a good instructor. Kobayashi went from a 25 handicap to a 9 in just three years and won A-Flight honors in the Jennie K. Wilson Invitational two years in a row. She plays to a 17 handicap.

Williams took up golf even later, also because of a busy home life. A widow, Williams didn't even pick up a golf club until she was 65, when she moved to Florida for several years to be with her daughter.

"I have five kids. I didn't have time for golf," said Williams, a 1940 Punahou School graduate. "I'm trying to make up for lost time."

Her handicap?

"I don't mind telling you my age, but I'm not telling you my handicap," she said.

Miyasaki and her husband, Kenzo, have been doing everything together since they first met at McKinley HIgh School (Class of 1941).

So, naturally, they first took up golf 40 years ago only after Kenzo's boss gave each of them a set of clubs. The equipment languished in a corner of the house for two years until Flo's brother finally convinced the two to start playing.

They haven't regretted it, playing at least twice a week.

Kono has been at it the longest — not golfing for the first time when she was in her 50s but in the 1950s.

Once a 7-handicapper and the overall low-net winner in the 1965 Jennie K., Kono now plays to a 25, playing again after a knee replacement last year.

Another thing the six octogenarians have in common is the goal of shooting their age one day.

"I still have hopes," says Kobayashi.

"Unless I get to 110," adds Williams.

"I'm trying very, very hard," said Kono, whose sons were outstanding golfers. Curtis, the 1987 Manoa Cup champion, is now the golf course superintendent at the Oahu Country Club, and Wesley is a starter at the Makalena Golf Course.

According to Kono, if anyone can do it, it'll be Miyasaki, who plays to an 18 handicap.

You can just hear it, can't you.

"Act your age, Flo."