It seems golf careers move at warp speed in Manoa Cup, and have for 99 years now.

Future stars make startling charges in the state's match-play championship. College juniors are suddenly seasoned golf veterans. Forty-something former champions see opportunities slipping away.

Take yesterday at breezy, often misty Oahu Country Club.

A trio of high school golfers and 13-year-old Lorens Chan showed up in the morning quarterfinals. Incoming USC junior Edward "E.J." Stenftenagel and Taeksoo Kim, a 16-year-old St. Anthony junior, ousted 'Iolani's David Fink and Hawai'i Prep's Max Bonk — top-15 finishers at last month's state high school championship — by 1-up scores.

Stenftenagel, 2-down after 13 holes, needed birdie on the 19th to hold off Fink. "If he sticks with it," Stenftenagel said, "he could be amazing."

This is Stenftenagel's first Manoa Cup. He lives in Indian Wells, Calif., and had played OCC just once before this week. It is hard to tell.

"Sometimes it looks like there should be a foot or two of break and you have to play 10 feet of break," Stenftenagel said. "It's very frightening. And there are some putts that are very quick. My lag putting has not been the best, but I've cleaned up a lot of 3- and 4-footers."

Meanwhile, Chan and Kurt Nino, the 2004 state high school champion about to start his junior year at San Francisco, were taking out 40-something past champions. Chan knocked off defending champion Jonathan Ota, 3 and 1 — taking control when Ota hit trees at No. 13 — and Nino beat four-time champion Brandan Kop, 2 and 1.

Nino was 2-down after three holes, but didn't trail the rest of the long day after Kop pulled drives on the fifth and sixth.

The teens' dreams died in the afternoon semifinals.

Nino made pretty much every critical putt on OCC's treacherous greens to beat Chan, 2-up, ending the teen's quest to become the youngest Manoa Cup champion in its 99-year history. Nino never trailed, but needed one-putts at Nos. 13, 14, 16 and 17 to shake off Chan, who erased a 2-up deficit and squared the match with birdie on the 15th.

Nino got the lead back with a 5-foot par putt on the next hole and called that the turning point. So did Chan, who missed a radical 10-footer for par. "That putt ... that probably was one of my best putts today, but it came up a little short," he said. "I played like 10 feet of break."

It closed with Chan blasting his approach over the 18th green after Nino put his pin-high. Chan, needing to win to extend the match, conceded after Nino's birdie putt was a foot short.

It was Nino's fourth semifinal. This morning's 36-hole final will be his second. He lost to Kellen-Floyd Asao in 2003, at age 15. "It's been five years since I've been like Loren," said Nino, who is the same height (5 feet 5) and weight (110 pounds) as the 'Iolani eighth-grader. "He hits the ball pretty good. He scared me for a while."

He should. Chan works with Kevin Ralbovsky and won the U.S. Kids and Doral Publinx last year. He finished fifth at Junior Worlds and Optimist International, and took third at this year's Mamala Bay Hickam Invitational — an open event won by 2006 U.S. Public Links champion Casey Watabu.

Even yesterday, Chan could not be disappointed with his second Manoa Cup. "I already played better than I thought I would," he said with a shrug.

Minutes after Nino's victory, Stenftenagel was coasting down Nu'uanu Valley after constructing a 3-up advantage over Kim in the steepest part of OCC's unique layout. Kim was 1-up at the turn. Both missed the 16th green with their tee shots and Kim conceded a 3-and-2 loss after missing his par putt.

"I just kind of fell apart," he said. "Screws coming off and then everything came off. It was a long week."

The beat goes on. Today, Kim plays a 36-hole public links qualifier back on Maui. Tomorrow he will fly back to practice for next week's Junior World qualifier.

Stenftenagel and Nino are 10 months apart in age and even closer in temperament. Both are very quiet and rarely show emotion or nerves. They have played together before, at a Sony Open practice round two years ago.

The youngest to win a Manoa Cup was 15-year-old Travis Toyama, in 2002. Toyama, who now plays for the University of Hawai'i, won a second Cup in 2005.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.