Boys champion Matt Burn tees off on the 530-yard, par-5 16th hole. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa – Over the summer, Matt Burn and his family traveled to Scotland, the birthplace of golf, where Matt joined 14 other youth players from around the world in a four-day golf camp at St. Andrews, which has hosted the British Open 30 times.
He might not ever play the Old Course at the Royal and Ancient. But the Kubasaki sophomore did add to his golf pedigree on a sunny but windy Thursday at Kadena’s Banyan Tree Golf Course.
Burn won the DODEA-Okinawa district golf title, outscoring defending champion and teammate Danny Contreras 83-87.
Fellow sophomore Emma Conroy repeated as girls champion, carding 103, nine strokes ahead of 2021 champion Julizka Aguirre, a Kubasaki senior, who scored 112.
“I’m trying to go pro,” said Burn, adding he also wants to attend a stateside university with a strong golf program.
Burn, Okinawa born and raised, takes lessons and spends time with the island’s junior golf association, Kubasaki coach Jon Fick said. “He has a lot of aspirations in golf,” Fick said.
Having played golf since he was little, Burn said his interest was piqued that much more when he and his family visited St. Andrews, had a chance to walk the Old Course and study the game’s history.
“That’s something I want to do someday,” Burn said of playing one of world golf’s historic venues, adding that to reach the next level takes “sacrificing a lot of stuff and taking the risks.”
Defending champion Emma Conroy of Kadena blasts out of a bunker on the 206-yard, par-3 sixth hole. Conroy won the title for the second straight year. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
2021 champion and defending runner-up Julizka Aguirre of Kubasaki tees off on the 414-yard, par-4 seventh hole. She finished second for the second straight year. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Defending champion Danny Contreras tees off on the 450-yard, par-4 17th hole en route to a runner-up finish Thursday. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Kadena's Noah Williams, who finished sixth among the boys, tees off on the 530-yard, par-5 16th hole. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Kadena's Sebastian Sanders, who finished seventh among the boys, tees off on the 530-yard, par-5 16th hole. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Burn and six other boys from an original 15 made the nine-hole cut of 55 on Thursday, while Conroy, Aguirre and Hopper Tuigamala were three of the 15 girls who made the nine-hole cut of 60.
“I’m happy for him,” Fick said of Burn. “Any of those (who made the cut) could have won it today. It was anybody’s game.”
For his part, Burn said he was “not satisfied” with his round on the 6,714-yard, par-72 Banyan Tree links. “I needed to be smart on the last hole, and my chipping was off.”
Conroy, too, said her game wasn’t up to what she considers par.
“I just wish I had played better,” she said. Asked what part of her game she could have done better, Conroy said: “Everything.”
“But I won. I’m happy,” Conroy said, confessing to a bit of sadness that it was her last time going up against her friend and main rival. “I’m just sad that Julizka isn’t playing with me next year,” she said.
