Within the next 10 days, three of Lake County”s five golf courses will host championships of note.
Next weekend (Aug. 5-6), Hidden Valley Lake Golf and Country Club, located just north of Middletown, will be the site of the third annual Hidden Valley Lake Amateur. A designated point event on the Northern California amateur circuit, the HVL Am not only features most of Lake County”s top golfers, but it also attracts contestants from throughout the region.
John Dunn, arguably Lake County”s top linkster, will be pursuing his third straight title. So far this year, he has won the Lake County Three Man, captured the area”s other NCGA tourney, the Lake County Partners at Buckingham, placed fourth in the Windsor City Amateur, and finished tied for 31st in the stroke play portion of the California State Amateur.
Don Geiger is the defending HVL Am senior titlist, Dr. Leroy Bowser is the reigning senior net champ, and Gary Moran won last year”s net division. A few spots still remain in next weekend”s event. You can contact HVL pros Andy Gonzalez and Shawn Auten for information at 987-3035.
The following Tuesday, Aug. 8, the Buckingham Summer Junior Championship tees it up starting at 10 a.m. The tournament is open to boys and girls ages 10-17. There are eight different age divisions in addition to overall boys” and girls” champions. Michael Radenbaugh of Garberville is back to defend the title he won last summer. Casey Bowlin of Kelseyville was last year”s girls” champion.
The Buckingham Summer Junior Championship is sponsored by Kelseyville Lumber, the Buckingham Tournament Players Club and the Lake County Wine Alliance. For entry information, contact Buckingham”s pro, Ted Mattila, at 279-4863.
The following day, on Wednesday, Aug. 9, Adams Springs Golf Club on Cobb Mountain plays host to the 13th annual Lake County Junior Amateur. The County Junior is the granddaddy of local junior events and its defending champions are the aforementioned Radenbaugh and the very gifted Lisa Copeland of Hidden Valley Lake.
Copeland, who is 14, will be entering Middletown High School as a freshman this fall. She just might end up being that one-in-a-million golfer who we”ll be seeing someday alongside Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis on the LPGA Tour.
The Lake County Junior is sponsored by the Kelseyvile Lions Club as well as John and Julie Berry. This will be the 10th consecutive year the Lions have shown their kindness and generosity to the youthful golfers of Lake County. The first tee time on Wednesday is at 8 a.m and once again the boys” champion will receive the George Hoberg Jr. trophy.
For tournament information, contact John Berry at 279-0449.
The vast majority of single-digit handicap golfers in the field for the NCGA Hidden Valley Lake Amateur will have a gameplan in place as they tee off next Saturday. The front nine on the Billy Bell Jr.-designed course is a grip-it-and-rip-it experience, whereas the back nine places greater emphasis upon hitting the correct target and determining the correct attack angles.
For the juniors who will be playing at Buckingham and Adams Springs, there will be no real advantage in trying to overpower those two courses. In fact, sometimes hitting the ball too far off the tee can lead to a host of problems. The prevailing advice is to be conservative with your long shots and be aggressive with the short ones.
One need only look to last week”s British Open to learn an invaluable lesson about the importance of a valid gameplan. This means a willingness to subject the ego of the long ball knocker for the sake of control, finding fairways and hitting greens. The result was a third Open title for Tiger Woods.
Tiger has always been known for his prodigious length off the tee. Courses have had to Tiger-proof their venues so that the par-5s don”t become victims of the driver-wedge brigade. However, a funny thing happened at Royal Liverpool last week.
Over the course of 56 par-4s and par-5s, Woods hit one driver. The rest of the time it stayed in the bag as he went to his more accurate 3-wood or 2-iron off the tee. Last year, Woods averaged 316 yards off the tee, hitting fairways 54 percent of the time. That ranked him 179th among tour pros in driving accuracy.
At the British Open, Tiger hit fairways 86 percent of the time, best among the 155 entrants in golf”s oldest championship. He was second in hitting greens in regulation and third in putting. The dichotomy of this strategy was most telling during Sunday”s final-round play when Woods was paired in the final grouping with Sergio Garcia.
Tiger would hit a 2-iron off the tee, twirling the club in his hands as it settled into the heart of the fairway some 275 yards off the tee. Sergio would then crush his driver 330 yards, although all too often it nestled in the gunk and the straw,
From the middle of the fairway, Woods would hit a 6-iron to the middle of the green. Garcia would whack a wedge from the rough and watch it fail to hold the green. The initial result was that Tiger made birdies and pars whereas Sergio missed a handful of 6-foot par putts.
The result was that Tiger Woods lifted The Claret Jug at the conclusion of play.
Pretty much everyone playing in next week”s NCGA Hidden Valley Lake Amateur, Buckingham Summer Junior Championship and Lake County Junior Amateur will have the ability to win. That”s a given. But at each tournament, only one golfer will have the course management skills and the gameplan to find the winner”s circle at the conclusion of play.
