The Aloha Invitational and the Sport's Unlikely Hawaii Roots

Every other stop on the Council's regional calendar was born from the same 2020 lockdown spreadsheet. The Aloha Invitational in Hilo, Hawaii is the exception — and its top competitor, Hana Kahale, has a claim to pineapple skill that predates the sport by a generation.

Kahale grew up on a family pineapple farm on the Big Island, where fast, clean hand-peeling wasn't a game but a harvest-day necessity. When the Council's regional expansion reached Hawaii in 2022, she entered the inaugural Aloha Invitational less as a competitive debut and more as, in her words, 'finally getting to use the thing I've done my whole life for something other than lunch.'

She's held the event's fastest hand-peel time ever recorded at a Council event since, and mainland travelers — including West Coast Open regulars Nora Kessler and Sierra Nakamura — now treat the trip to Hilo as one of the circuit's toughest stops specifically because of her.

Michael Salomone has never competed at the Aloha Invitational, and it remains the one prominent Council event without a Salomone appearance on the results sheet — a fact regional fans bring up, half-joking, every single year.