When Stephanie Kono was 6 years old, she told her parents, Teruo and Lori, that she was "bored" and wanted something to do.

"She's always reading something. Even a phone book," said Stephanie's mom, recalling the early years of the family's only and very precocious child.

One day when Stephanie was reading the telephone book, she thumbed through the yellow pages, stopping when she came to "golf."

"Mommy, I want to play golf," Lori remembered her daughter saying.

Dutifully, Mom called Les Uyehara, one of the golf teachers listed. "How old is she?" Uyehara asked.

"Six."

"She's a little too young. Wait till she's 7."

"She wants to do it now," Lori said.

"Well. If she's that determined, OK," Uyehara said.

Kono said she remembers finishing last in her first junior golf tournament.

"The next tournament, I was second from last. I was so happy," Kono recalled.

Within two years, Kono's golf game improved to the point where she needed special attention. So the Konos hired Kevin Ralbovsky, a local golf professional, who has become part of the family ever since. He was with Lori when Stephanie won the Westfield PGA of America Junior Championship in Ohio last month.

Teruo Kono, who also couldn't be at his daughter's other Mainland appearances in the U.S. Girls Junior Championship and the AJGA Betsy Rawls Championship, made sure to take time off from his business to go to Germany for the Harder Junior German Masters.

In a whirlwind summer of golf that matched another Punahou School golf phenom, Michelle Wie, in running up 41,000 frequent-flier miles, Kono came home with two prestigious golf trophies.

Thanks to a fourth-place finish in 2004, Kono received an all-expenses paid trip to the Westfield PGA of America Junior Championship in Ohio last month, winning this time in wire-to-wire fashion.

That qualified Kono for another expense-free trip to Germany. The only American girl in an elite international field, Kono again led in every round to win the Harder Junior German Masters in Frankfort.

As the defending champion, Kono has been invited back, all expenses paid, to both tournaments next year.

"I don't know what the (golf) calendar for next year is, but she's planning to go back again to Germany next year," her mom said. "We had such a great time. The people there were so nice."

Said Stephanie: "It was so exciting. It was the first trip to Europe for all of us."

Her only regret was that she couldn't be home to try and win the Hawai'i State Women's Golf Association Stroke Play championship for the third consecutive year.

"I really wanted to play in it but I just couldn't," she said.

Who can blame her?

Ten days in Germany with her folks. Winning an elite event, visiting historic places and dancing with other young teens at a Heidelberg nightclub.

Heady stuff for a 15-year-old.

Winning the Westfield PGA was huge, according to Kono.

"It was pretty big for me. It was the first tournament I won outside of Hawai'i," said Kono, who won the 2001 HSWGA Match Play Championship when she was 11, the first of two back-to-back HSWGA stroke play titles at 12, the 2003 Jennie K. Wilson Invitational at 13 and the Interscholastic League of Honolulu girls title as a freshman last season.

"Somebody told me that the Westfield winner would get to go to Germany," Kono said. So when the invitation came in the mail, it made the PGA victory doubly rewarding.

The golf course in Germany was different from any she had played before, according to Kono. Still, she posted two of the only five sub-par rounds in the 54-hole tournament, making only three bogeys in the first two days with rounds of 70 and 71 to finish at even-par 219.

"My short game was pretty good. So was my putting," Kono said.

She will play in three more tournaments before the end of the year — in New Orleans next month, the Polo Championships in Georgia in November and the Phoenix Silver Belle in December.

For now, there's school work for Kono, who starts her sophomore year at Punahou today. She's taking trigonometry/algebra 2, English, chemistry, ancient history and an elective, jewelry making. Kono had all A's except for one A-minus on her last report card.

A-minus? In what?

"In phys. ed," Kono said.