Move over, Michelle. You might have female company in the Sony Open in Hawai'i next January.

Michelle Wie, Hawai'i's teen golf phenom, has received an exemption for her fourth try in making the cut in the PGA Tour event at the Waialae Country Club.

Ayaka Kaneko, a junior at Sacred Hearts Academy, will try to join her in the 144-player field. She will enter the Monday qualifying on Jan. 8 at the Makaha Resort Golf Club, a change of venue after years at the Pearl Country Club.

Kaneko hasn't played Makaha yet, but she hopes to do so soon, and often, in the next six weeks.

Playing Waialae is no problem. She practices there every day after school because her father, Katsumi Kaneko, is a member, and she lives just across the street from the first tee. Her best score at Waialae is a 70, shooting it from the back tees with the member No. 4 and No. 10 par-5 holes playing as par-4s as in the Sony Open.

Who and what prompted her to try and play against the men in the Sony Open?

"Me and my dad," said Kaneko, who went deep in the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship the past two years. Her quarterfinal finish at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Oregon this year gave her an exemption in 2007 along with Kimberly Kim, the defending champion, who's also from Hawai'i.

"It's all about challenges. I look forward to the challenge of playing against the men," said Kaneko, who is fully in favor of Wie's similar cross-gender quest. "I think it's good for her to play against the men. Maybe it'll be good for me, too."

It won't be the first time for Kaneko, who was born in Japan but moved with her parents to Hawai'i five years ago. She played in the 2005 Hawai'i Pearl Open qualifier and finished in a tie for sixth.

"I didn't feel comfortable playing against all men. They all hit the ball longer than me," said the 5-foot-7 Kaneko, who averages around 260 yards off the tee. But now that she's older — she turns 17 on Jan. 24 — Kaneko feels she won't be as uncomfortable around the guys.

And, yes, the Pearl Open in February is also on her 2007 schedule. She also plans on asking for a sponsor's exemption for the LPGA Tour event at either Turtle Bay or Ko Olina later that month. Kaneko played in two LPGA events this year, the ShopRite Classic in New Jersey where she missed the cut by one stroke, and the Takefuji Classic in Las Vegas after being the medalist in the amateur qualifying.

Kaneko's ambitious schedule will mean she won't be playing high school golf. Besides three USGA events — the U.S. Women's Open, Women's Amateur and the U.S. Girls Junior Amateur — there's a possibility that Kaneko will try to qualify for a couple of Japan LPGA events as well.

It's all part of the plan to take her game to the next level, said Kaneko, whose has made rapid progress each year after taking up golf for the first time at age 12.

"2006 was better than last year. My putting is better. My whole golf game is better because of David Ishii," Kaneko said.

She started working with Ishii, the 1990 Hawaiian Open champion and one of the leading Japan PGA Tour all-time money winners, six months ago.

Growing up in Tokyo, her sport was softball. Which shouldn't come as a surprise considering her father was a baseball player at Waseda University and later, professionally, for the Chunichi Dragons.

"Wally Yonamine was my boss (manager)," said Katsumi Kaneko, who played five years with the Dragons before a career-ending injury.

"I think I am a lucky man," Kaneko says, figuring he if had made baseball a career, he wouldn't have gotten into an importing business with an office in Hong Kong or thought about moving to Hawai'i with his family — wife Reiko and daughters Ayaka and Ayumi, who's now attending college in Japan after graduating from Punahou School.

They moved here in 2002 with Circuit Court Judge Sabrina McKenna helping in the transition.

"We're kind of like hanai family," said McKenna, who first met them in Tokyo a year earlier.

Katsumi Kaneko has come to see first hand how Hawai'i's junior golf program has helped his daughter to become one of the state's leading young female golfers along with Wie and Stephanie Kono.

At this year's U.S. Women's Open in Newport, R.I., Ayaka got to meet Japan's most heralded golfer, Ayako Okamoto, who spent 30 minutes on the practice range with the youngster.

Her father had to tell Ayaka who Ayako was. Such is youth and the passage of time.

Interestingly, Okamoto, a 17-time LPGA winner and member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, also started out as a softball player before taking up golf at the age of 22.

Who knows how far this former softball pitcher will go in golf? She's certainly taking a huge first step to start the new year.

"It's going to be more busy for me next year," Kaneko said.