Opposing a boom in golf courses developed by Japanese investors, some Hawaiians are teed off.

When his new Japanese landlord told Ryoei Higa to abandon his flourishing lettuce fields to make way for a golf course, the Hawaii farmer had a simple retort: “No can eat golf balls,” said the weather-worn 70-year-old, in the plain-spoken pidgin favored in the islands.

Higa’s quietly stated warning has become a rallying cry for farmers and others who feel threatened by an unprecedented boom in golf course development across the state. On Oahu, the most populated island, more than two dozen new golf courses covering roughly 5,000 acres are on the drawing boards. The island already has 24 courses.

Because Japanese own most of Oahu’s private courses and are planning many of the others, the issue has fanned the flames of an already smoldering foreign investment controversy.

Golf courses were one of the hottest topics in a poll on foreign investment last year sponsored by The Honolulu Advertiser and Channel 2 News. Respondents strongly opposed foreign purchases of land for development of golf courses, with 65% calling such purchases “bad for Hawaii” and 63% advocating an outright ban on them.

The growing backlash against the seemingly innocuous, verdant expanses has pulled together some strange bedfellows. Small farmers, already a vanishing breed in this tourism-dominated state, fear for their livelihood. Environmentalists worry about chemical runoff and the courses’ tremendous water consumption. Community activists are concerned that land values will soar and displace local residents. Even some local golfers are grousing that they may be pushed aside in favor of high-spending Japanese tourists.

“The developers have to think about the people, not just the money,” said Higa’s wife, Nancy, who remembers her children carrying rocks off the land to make way for the plow.

Her family’s plight caught public sympathy, and landlord Sanjiro Nakade eventually backed down, letting the Higas farm the 49-acre plot on the undeveloped west side of Oahu for the four years remaining on their lease. But Higa, weary from a lifetime of tilling the soil, soon decided to retire, and the land now lies fallow, its future uncertain. Higa’s words, meanwhile, live on as the slogan for an ad hoc group formed by his colleagues, “Farmers Against Golf Courses.”

On the opposite side of the island, at the manicured Turtle Bay Resort, Nancy Higa’s feelings are echoed by two contemporaries who enjoy a vastly different life style. Bill and Barbara Carpenter live in a condominium overlooking the resort’s third fairway, and were on the links three times a week--until last Christmas.

A terse letter signed by the resort’s golf pro canceled the golf privileges of resort residents at the end of 1988. “Not uncommon to new ownership are changes in direction and perspective,” read the note. Asahi Jyuken of Osaka, Japan, had bought the resort that year.

“The new owners happen to be Japanese, but I don’t care if they are Lower Slobbovians,” huffed Carpenter, 73, who retired to Hawaii from Upstate New York. He called the decision “insensitive, outrageous, obnoxious and a lot more.” The resort is developing a special rate for area residents, but Carpenter says his pension won’t allow it.

Other local golfers are also concerned about Japan’s apparently insatiable appetite for golf. They object to the sale of high-priced memberships in Japan, the crush of tourists on the links and rising greens fees.

“There’s a lot of rumbling in the ranks about being priced out of golf courses that people are used to playing, and being pushed onto (municipal) courses that are overcrowded already,” said Jim Becker, who has golfed in Hawaii most of his life.

The torrent of golf course proposals can be traced to a state law passed in 1985, which facilitates their development on “marginal” agricultural lands. Prime farm land in the state is largely monopolized by pineapple and sugar plantations. A move to repeal the law failed in the Legislature this year. But the community outrage convinced the Honolulu City Council to pass a one-year moratorium on golf course permits to assess their potential effect.

In the meantime, the opposition is chalking up some successes--at least in stalling projects. Two other courses on the Higas’ leeward coast have been derailed temporarily. And on the windward side of the island, the proposed 36-hole Royal Hawaiian Country Club has run into problems relocating tenant farmers.

“If they make our land a playground,” asked Raymond Pedrina, who has refused to leave his banana fields, “where are us Hawaiians going to farm?” He and his neighbors have secured the help of a flamboyant local attorney, Tony Locricchio, who has filed two lawsuits to stop the project.

Some developers are a bit taken aback by the whole golf course controversy. Norman Quon, project director for Kuilima Development Co., noted how times have changed over the past few years. “I used to think,” he said, shaking his head, “that golf courses were great things to have around--green, open space.”