Lynne Chow visited her sister, former LPGA touring pro Lenore Rittenhouse, in North Carolina last summer and asked for a golf lesson.

Rittenhouse had given her younger sister her first lesson nearly 30 years ago. But this time, they both knew it was more than just the lesson. Three years ago, Chow had been told that she had only six months to live because of breast cancer.

"It was hot and humid and she was wearing her wig. She didn't want to take it off," recalled Rittenhouse. "I told her, why not? Who do you know here?"

They, along with Chow's teenage daughter Marissa, who also got some golf lessons from Aunty Lenore, couldn't help but break out laughing. Why not, indeed?

That Chow had asked for a lesson "showed her can-do attitude" said Rittenhouse, who said Lynne even went skiing with her family last winter. "She fought it all the way. She finally lost that battle."

Chow, a distributor of golf supplies, passed away last Friday at the age of 51. Besides Marissa, Chow is survived by her husband, Nelson; son, Matthew; sister, Lauren Thompson; and her parents, Louis and Myrna Muraoka. Funeral services will be held Monday at Hosoi Garden Mortuary with visitation starting at 2 p.m.

That no one will ever see Chow's bright smile again came as a shock to all who knew her, especially those in the golf industry. They knew about her cancer 10 years ago and were relieved when it went into remission after chemotherapy and radiation treatments. But it returned devastatingly three years ago.

"Lynne didn't want anybody to know about it," said Nelson, her husband of 24 years. "She didn't want to bother anybody. She was like that. She kept saying to people, who asked, 'I'm OK, I'm OK.' "

"She was someone who was always in control of her life. She never went into a coma even to the end. She fought it all the way," said Myrna, the mom of the three Muraoka girls from Manoa.

Rittenhouse spent three weeks during the Christmas holiday with Lynne, who was in and out of the hospital during that time.

"Geev 'um, Lenore. Go for it," were the last words Rittenhouse heard from her sister at the airport when she left. Lynne was delighted that her sister was going back to her classes in the school of nursing at Sand Hills Community College, where Rittenhouse also teaches golf.

"I'm the oldest, but I was the baby in the family," said Rittenhouse. "She was the glamorous one, popular. She was the extrovert, always smiling, always happy. I was the shy introvert."

Lynne was the big sister to Lenore, figuratively, and literally to Lauren, who's here from Vacaville, Calif., to be with the family.

Rittenhouse remembers when she went out on an occasional date — if she wasn't playing softball at Roosevelt High School or golf at the University of Hawai'i — Lynne would make sure Lenore looked "presentable" by lending her one of her own dresses. "She was always worrying about me."

Even now, when Lenore is mother of a strapping 16-year-old son named William. Just a month ago, when Lynne had friends over for dinner, she made Lenore wear something from her closet again.

"I knew how sick and in pain she was, but watched in amazement as she carried on her normal self, laughing and conversing," Rittenhouse wrote in an e-mail letter that she asked to be read at the funeral by Pearl Country Club's Guy Yamamoto because she couldn't be here. "She was the consummate people person, striking up conversation with whomever happened to be near her."

Rittenhouse recalls the time two years ago when they were having dinner with Susie Bellanca, a friend from Hawai'i, at an Olive Garden ("which she loved") in Augusta, Ga.

"She kept telling me that the guy eating across from us was Tiger Woods' caddie. I told her don't be silly. She kept insisting that he was," Rittenhouse said. Not to be dissuaded, Lynne went right over and asked the guy point blank. First, the guy only said, "I wish." Lynne persisted that he was who she said he was until finally, Steve Williams 'fessed up.

"They both had a big laugh about it. They had a nice conversation as if they knew each other for years. That's the kind of person she was," Rittenhouse said. It's what made Lynne a success when she began as a golf supply distributor, notably Imperial Headgear and Tehama clothing.

"I knew she could handle it and do well at it," said local Titleist representative Les Tamashiro, who was among those helping her get started in that line of the golf business more than 20 years ago.

"It was a male-dominated business at that time," added Jay Hinazumi of Golf Concepts, Inc., where Chow worked briefly before running her own enterprise. "She had the respect of all of us in the golf industry."

"Life isn't fair," Rittenhouse said. "My sister worked hard and played hard. In short, she had a zest for life. She was my biggest fan. I'm going to miss my sister, my confidante, my friend; as will the rest of us."

Rittenhouse wanted to share one more story about Lynne, who caddied for her in LPGA events on Maui and Kaua'i. In a pro-am at Princeville, one of Rittenhouse's pro-am partners was U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, who was the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. After he got out of the bunker, she told Lynne to go and rake the sand trap for him. "Let him do it himself," Lynne replied.