The quiet champion

Heather Cory

Kari Higa, 33, hits balls at the driving range at Spanish Trail Golf Course. One of the best amateur golfers in the city, Higa recently won the Spanish Trail Club Championship.

By Christopher Drexel (contact)

Friday, Nov. 21, 2008 | 12:20 a.m.

Heather Cory

Kari Higa, 33, poses for a portrait at Spanish Trail Golf Course. One of the best amateur golfers in the city, Higa recently won the Spanish Trail Club Championship.

Heather Cory

Kari Higa, 33, poses for a portrait at Spanish Trail Golf Course on. One of the best amateur golfers in the city, Higa recently won the Spanish Trail Club Championship.

Kari Higa is known for having a shy personality around the Spanish Trail Country Club. She just lets her game do the talking for her.

The west Las Vegas resident recently won her fourth course championship in her six years at Spanish Trail on Oct. 28. It was the latest accolade on an always growing resume for Higa, who is one of the most accomplished female amateur players in Southern Nevada.

But you wouldn’t know it by talking to her.

“She is a very nice girl and very quiet — it’s part of her character,” said Doe Emes, a longtime Spanish Trail member who finished third in the club championship. “She’s very shy until you get to her know. But she is a very focused player. She is very strong. She hits the ball a long way. And she has a great touch around the green.”

Higa, 33, said being quiet around the golf course is nothing new.

“That’s how I’ve always been,” she said.

The strategy has served her well so there is no reason to change now.

Higa started golfing at the age of 11 with the encouragement of her mother, Karen Higa, who signed her daughter up for junior golf. She picked up the sport quickly after that and never looked back.

“My first year I wasn’t so good,” Higa said. “Then the second year I started winning all these tournaments.”

Higa went on to have a successful high school career at Bonanza. The Bengals won team state titles in two of her four years there, and Higa won a state individual championship as a junior in 1992.

Higa then entertained thoughts of trying to qualify for the LPGA Tour but decided to focus on amateur events. The highlight of her young career came in September 2004 when she won the Nevada State Amateur Championship at the Dayton Valley Country Club in Northern Nevada.

Higa won her first Spanish Trail club championship in 2003 and repeated in 2004 and 2007. She is also one of 17 players — male or female — in the 23-year history of Spanish Trail to record a double eagle at the course.

The day was Aug. 10, 2004, and the site was the seventh hole of the Sunrise portion of the course.

Higa remembers hitting a good drive, initially thinking her ball was on the left side of the fairway. After more than five minutes searching for it, she found the ball on the left side of the fairway. She then used an eight iron to hit the ball another 145 yards.

“I just hit it and didn’t think anything of it because the pin was way back on the left side,” Higa said. “I went up there and couldn’t find it. So I started looking behind the green and couldn’t find it. Then I looked in the hole and it was in the hole. It was pretty exciting.”

Karen Higa said she never imagined her daughter would take golf this far after initially asking her to start the game 22 years ago. But she is glad she did.

“It’s been a surprise,” Karen Higa said. “She thoroughly enjoys what she’s doing with golf and we’re proud of her. If you put in all the time she puts into golf, you’re going to get a lot of it.”

Christopher Drexel can be reached at 990-8929 or christopher.drexel@hbcpub.com.