It is starting to look like the older the Manoa Cup gets — and it hits 101 this week — the younger its champions will be.

Alex Ching, winner of the 100th state amateur match play championship, is the quintessential Manoa Cup champion of the new century. He was 18 when he won last year, while simultaneously planning his Punahou graduation party and an already noteworthy college golf career. In the past decade, Jonathan Ota is the only Manoa Cup champion older than 20 — and he was more than twice that (44).

Ching's college career hasn't so much blossomed as blasted off. He was honorable mention All-American as a freshman at University of San Diego, where he led the Toreros to their first NCAA Championship appearance. He led the national tournament after two rounds and USD all season, earning all-league and Freshman of the Year honors in the West Coast Conference.

USD used Ching's scores, often shot while wearing multiple layers of clothes, gloves and a beanie to ward off the chill, in all but one of his 38 college rounds. His scoring average was 71.72. He had four Top 10s, including a win at the Bay Area Shootout. He was so hot in the second round of the NCAA Championship that even after missing four-foot birdie putts on the 10th and 11th holes he was 5-under.

To hear Ching talk, going from Hawai'i junior golf to Division I competition was as tough as choosing a club in windless conditions.

"It didn't seem like there was a transition," Ching shrugged. "Us Hawai'i kids, we play as much as we can on the Mainland in the summer. ... When I got up there it kind of seemed like we were just going to a junior tournament every week, I just didn't have to send a resume to get in. ... And my team, the minute I walked into the first meeting it was real family."

That might tell you all you need to know about the emergence of Hawai'i junior golf in the Michelle Wie/Tadd Fujikawa era. These guys are good. And, in the state's most storied amateur tournament, which requires participants to walk every hole of Oahu Country Club's torturous layout, their youth and endurance give them a clear advantage.

Those who have the added wisdom and experience of college golf are even tougher to beat. Ching "had the time of my life up there" in San Diego his freshman year. Even his version of the "Freshman 15" was good — he gained 12 pounds of muscle to fill out a 5-foot-11 frame that was somewhat scrawny coming out of high school.

His chicken-skin second round at the NCAA Championship was a page straight out of his Manoa Cup playbook from last year. Ching grew up playing OCC. He has been watching Manoa Cup matches half his life, but couldn't advance out of qualifying until he was 15. Last year, a month after winning the only state high school golf championship he ever played (Ching was a two-time state doubles champion in tennis), he blew through his first three Manoa Cup matches.

Two-time champ Travis Toyama was his quarterfinal opponent and the two fired up 19 birdies between them. Ching needed to shoot 64 and birdie the final two holes just to tie Toyama; six holes and three birdies later he beat him. That afternoon, Ching went into overtime again against good buddy TJ Kua, winning with birdie again. He overwhelmed Ota, 8 and 7, in the final, winning seven straight holes — five with birdie — in the opening hour. For the week, Ching had 41 birdies and an eagle.

This summer starts with Manoa Cup. Ching also plans to play the Northeastern Amateur, try to qualify for the U.S. Amateur and defend titles at the Army and OCC invitationals, while working on "shaping" shots off the tee — as recommended by coach Tim Mickelson, Phil's brother. What Ching does best on the course is stay in the present, which is where he plans to be all this week at Manoa Cup.

"Living in the present, especially in match play is key," Ching said. "You can't dwell over the past or look into the future.

"The key is to believe in yourself. Every kid in Hawai'i, every junior golfer, every amateur golfer I've seen come through here, has the game to do whatever they want. Everyone has the shots to hit at this course, but the one key thing you need to believe is that you can make that putt on the last hole to send it into overtime, or make a shot from behind a tree to let your opponent know you're still in it."

Ching did all that and more at the 100th Manoa Cup, joining the burgeoning ranks of the Young and Relentless in Hawai'i golf. The 101st tees off tomorrow.