The 10th anual Pepsi Celebrity Quarterback Shootout tees it up this morning at the Buckingham Golf and Country Club situated at the base of Mount Konocti alongside Clear Lake. This year”s field features 20 former greats and near greats from the National Football League. The listing of tournament participants includes former 49ers Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Roger Craig and Jerry Rice along with past Raiders such as Kenny Stabler, Cliff Branch and Daryle Lamonica.
The Shootout has come a long way since its inaugural running on Aug. 24, 1997. Back then, the tourney was a mere curiosity, with a large number of doubters and cynics wondering whether or not it could be pulled off. Today it is a popular regional celebrity pro-am that is expertly run and consistently features a field of Hall of Fame members and Super Bowl champions.
Back in the summer of 1997, golf issues included the new non-metallic spikes, the introduction of GPS systems on motorized golf carts, the PGA Championship held at an old U.S. Open venue (Winged Foot), Tiger Woods” first major win at the Masters, and local golfers Brels Solomon and Shawn Auten going to U.S. Amateur qualifying in Nevada.
That June, I penned a column in the Record-Bee that ran the headline, “Montana to play at Buckingham.” It was one of those articles that generated a lot of reaction, namely that they didn”t believe that Greg Brennett, general manager at Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa, and PGA golf professional Mark Wotherspoon of Buckingam could pull off an event of this magnitude in Lake County. I personally thought that they could and endorsed the event by purchasing a spot as one of the amateur golfing participants.
The original Shootout didn”t yet have a corporate sponsor nor did it have a positional theme at that time for quarterbacks. A few years later, quarterbacks would be the theme as Bennett and Wotherspoon introduced a field that not only included Montana and Stabler, bout also featured Bart Starr, Johnny Unitas, Len Dawson, Jim Plunkett, John Brodie and Jim McMahon. Pepsi would sign on as the name sponsor a few years later. Back in 1997, the tournament was called the Summerfest Celebrity Golf Shootout.
Of the original celebrities at that first Shootout, Stabler, Montana, Branch, Raider lineman Art Thoms and 49er backup quarterback John Paye are still around and playing in this year”s event. An interesting piece of unimportant trivia is that the original Shootout field included just 16 football players. The rest of the field was filled out by two past members of the Oakland Athletics — pitcher Mike Norris and infielder Shooty Babbit.
The original Shootout even back then had a decidedly 49er-Raider flavor to it. The Niner contingent included the aforementioned Montana and Paye as well as defensive back Dana McLemore, linebackers Tim Collier and Dan Bunz and running back Delvin Williams. The Raiders were led by Stabler, Branch, Lamonica, center Dave Dalby, linebacker Jeff Barnes, safety George Atkinson and receiver Mervyn Fernandez.
The only non-Raiders and non-Niners in that first Shootout were defensive lineman Keith Millard (Vikings) and cornerback Ken Stills (Packers). However, both Millard and Stills did have a Bay Area connection, even if they never played home games at Candlestick or the Coliseum. Millard played his high school football at Foothill in Pleasanton, while Stills was at El Camino. Millard has spent most of his career in Minnesota, while Stills was from Green Bay.
Nowadays, the Shootout has two separate nine-hole pairings, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon as shifts of amateur golfers take turns playing with an NFL star. The method of play is the scramble format wherein the best shot of the fivesome is used for team scoring. A lot of the amateur participants in the Shootout are novice or inexperienced golfers who happen to be avid football fans first.
That wasn”t necessarily the case at the first Shootout. Golfers played all 18 holes and the format called for counting the two best scores per hole for the fivesome”s total. In 1997, there were 72 amateur participants and 19 of them had single-digit handicaps, including some of the region”s top golfers, players such as Juan Lopez of Lakeport, Charles Creecy of Lakeport, and Upper Lake High School coach Craig Kinser.
Former 49er Dana McLemore spoke at the awards ceremony that evening and mentioned to the crown that he had spent the day with the “best golfers I have ever seen in my life.” He was paired with an all-Lake County team that included Lopez, Kinser, Manny Mendoza and Don Meri. Most of us in attendance that evening thought that while McLemore”s comment was certainly a nice one, he hadn”t seen a whole lot of great golf.
Back in 1997, the pairings part occurred on Saturday evening while the tournament was contested on Sunday. Comedian Don Novello, best known from his days on Saturday Night Live as the irrepressible Father Guido Sarducci, was the emcee at the pairings party. Another comedian, Howie Mandel, was the featured performer at the post-tournament concert.
Since that first tournament in 1997, a couple of changes have taken place to make the Shootout a more successful event. Early on, Wotherspoon realized that he had to reconfigure the Buckingham course for safety reasons. The viewing public didn”t grasp that the 12th hole was a par-4 hole with a hidden-away tee box well behind the third-hole tee box. People would walk into the middle of the 12th fairway, unaware that contestants were blasting tee shots at them some 200 yards back. As a result, the tee box on 12 as well as the upper tee box on 17 were closed in order to keep spectators safe.
A lot of time has passed since the inaugural Summerfest Celebrity Shootout was first contested back in August of 1997. Since that summer, Joe Montana has entered the Hall of Fame, Tiger Woods has won 11 more major titles, and the Pepsi Celebrity Quarterback Shootout has found solid footing at Buckingham as the kickoff to Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa”s Summerfest Celebration. It”s a great day of fun on the links and it”s a very memorable walk down memory lane.
