Ricky Castillo was in second grade when his dad, Mark, took the household on trip to Hawaii.
For the Castillos, the journey had particular which means.
Mark Castillo (pronounced Ca-still-e-o) was round Ricky’s age when he briefly lived in Kauai after his mother and father, Orlino and Lydia, returned to the island from Southern California to stick with Lydia’s mom within the city of Hanamaulu, close to the Lihue airport. On the west facet of Kauai sits Kaumakani, the place each Orlino and Lydia labored on sugar cane plantations with their households after immigrating from the Philippines post-World Conflict II.
For Mark and spouse Kim, each lecturers, it was an opportunity for his or her three youngsters – Derek, the oldest; Ricky, the center youngster; and Kelli, the youngest and solely lady – to expertise their hardscrabble roots.
“I simply bear in mind being grateful simply seeing the homes that my grandparents lived in,” Ricky remembered. “They have been rundown. … It wasn’t essentially the most wonderful life. It was form of soiled and outdated, however they made it work and labored exhausting for us to get to the place we’re right now.”
Added Mark in a New York Occasions article in 2020: “I needed our children to see the plantation earlier than they tore down the homes. I needed them to grasp the individuals who got here earlier than us labored very exhausting so you would have what you will have.”
Ricky Castillo, now 23, finds himself, for the primary time since that household trip, again in Hawaii for this week’s Sony Open on Oahu, the island simply east of westernmost Kauai. It’s not Castillo’s first Tour begin – the previous All-American and Walker Cupper out of the College of Florida performed within the 2020 U.S. Open and final season’s Valspar Championship – but it surely’s his debut as a full-fledged member after graduating from the Korn Ferry Tour final 12 months.
Ricky credit a lot of his golf success to Lydia, who was a continuing presence on the boys’ junior golf tournaments. When Mark and Kim wanted assist funding an costly nationwide schedule, Lydia would deal with the invoice. She’d additionally decide the children up from college most days and drop the boys on the golf course to apply till their mother and father bought off work.
Lydia Castillo handed away in 2014 at age 71, when Ricky was in center college.
“She was tremendous, tremendous influential on my life,” Ricky stated. “You recognize, unhappy that she isn’t right here and may’t be right here to look at this. I’m pleased that my first begin goes to have the ability to be out right here in Hawaii and really feel like part of her is at all times with me.”
It normally is. When Ricky was 5 years outdated, Lydia as soon as introduced a puka-shell necklace again from Hawaii. Whereas the necklace has been changed a number of instances through the years, Ricky has not taken the puka shells off. It’s change into his trademark.
“I get some backlash from it at instances,” Ricky stated, “however I really like carrying it, and it’s cool that I at all times really feel like she’s proper right here.”
Mark and the household deliberate to fly out Wednesday morning from Yorba Linda to Waialae Nation Membership in Honolulu, the place they’ll reunite with Ricky and Derek, who hopped on his brother’s bag final July, and a few kin who nonetheless dwell in Hawaii, together with one in every of Ricky’s uncles.
“There’s a bakery that’s actually near his place, and I’m having him convey some ensaymadas,” Ricky stated, referencing the favored Filipino pastry.
Much more to make him really feel at house.
