This coming week features an interesting dichotomy of tournament golf in Northern California. The 107th annual United States Amateur Golf Championship starts on Monday at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, while the week concludes on Saturday with the playing of the 11th annual Pepsi Celebrity Quarterback Golf Shootout at Buckingham Golf and Country Club.
The U.S. Amateur is the granddaddy of amateur golf tourneys in America as well as the most prestigious event of its kind. More than 6,000 amateur golfers with a handicap of 2.4 or lower attended 36-hole qualifiers in early August, with 312 linksters making it into the final field at the Olympic Club. On Monday and Tuesday, the field plays both courses, the Ocean and the Lake, with the field trimmed to the low 64 for match play, which starts on Wednesday and concludes with a 36-hole final on Sunday.
A recent trend of the United States Golf Association is to award a U.S. Amateur to an established top-ranked course in conjunction with it receiving a bid for a subsequent U.S. Open. Pebble Beach hosted the 1999 Amateur and the 2000 Open. Winged Foot was the site for the ”04 Amateur and the 2006 Open. The Olympic Club will be the site for the 2013 U.S. Open. It”s a good way for the host club and the USGA to make adjustments to a venue prior to the playing of the National Open.
The Olympic Club previously hosted the 1981 U.S. Amateur, which was won by Nathaniel Crosby, the youngest son of singer Bing Crosby, an avid golfer himself. It also hosted the 1958 Amateur won by Charles Coe.
Of course, Olympic is best known for its four previous U.S. Opens. All of those championships resulted in an upset winner taking down a top golfer of the era. Jack Fleck defeated Ben Hogan in 1955 in a playoff, Billy Casper did the same to Arnold Palmer in 1966, Scott Simpson nipped Tom Watson by one stroke in 1987, and Lee Janzen outlasted Payne Stewart in 1998.
The U.S. Amateur perpetual trophy reads like the ultimate who”s who of golf. Past champions include Francis Ouimet, Chick Evans, Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Craig Stadler, Mark O”Meara, Hal Sutton, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods, all winners of professional majors. However, since Woods” third consecutive triumph in 1996, the winner of the Amateur has faced a golfing jinx comparable to the SI cover jinx.
Starting in 1997, all 10 winners of the Amateur have been young, college-aged players. All 10 have turned pro. Matt Kuchar and David Gosset have won once on the PGA Tour and yet have followed up their sole triumph with a loss of playing status. The others ? Hank Kuehne, Jeff Quinney, Bubba Dickerson, Ricky Barnes, Nick Flanagan, Ryan Moore, Eduardo Molinari and Richie Ramsey ? have all floundered. Quinney (40th) and Moore (50th) are having their best year ever on the tour”s money list, and Kuchar is hanging in there (93rd). The rest are outside the top 200.
If there is an advantage of going to the Amateur over the Open, it”s the ambiance as well as the ticket prices and parking availability. You can walk in peace over all of the Olympic Club”s scenic 36 holes for a daily rate of $15. And you just might see a star of the future.
QB Shootout
The 11th annual Pepsi Celebrity Quarterback Shootout has very little to do with the future and has everything to do with the past. A scramble-format friendly tournament, the Shootout features NFL stars of the past coupled with four amateur partners playing the best shot of the team. It”s a wonderful walk down memory lane for serious fans of professional football as well as casual fans of the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders.
First conceived in 1997 by Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa”s president, Greg Bennett, and Buckingham”s PGA professional, Mark Wotherspoon, the Shootout is this area”s biggest spectator sporting event. Down through the years, the likes of Joe Montana, Dick Butkus, Jim Brown, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Jim Plunkett, Len Dawson and Eric Dickerson have walked the fairways at Buckingham and struggled with its testy putting surfaces.
This time around, the 49er contingent in the Shootout includes future Hall of Famer Jerry Rice along with running back Roger Craig, tight end Russ Francis, wide receivers Dwight Clark, J.J. Stokes and John Taylor, and quarterback John Paye. The Raiders at this year”s Shootout include quarterbacks Kenny Stabler and Daryle Lamonica, tight end Raymond Chester, defensive lineman Art Thoms, wide receivers Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch, and running back Marv Hubbard. Quarterbacks Roman Gabriel of the Rams and Craig Morton of the Cowboys and Broncos, along with Fearsome Foursome lineman David Deacon Jones, round out the rest of the Celebrity Shootout field.
For the uninitiated, some of they guys can really play golf. Jerry Rice is close to a scratch golfer as is Dwight Clark. Kenny Stabler and Daryle Lamonica are solid golfers who are capable of pars and birdies. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum is Roger Craig. A bonafide 36-handicapper, the scramble format is just about perfect for Craig.
Music is also a big part of the Shootout festivities, with Eddie money performing at Konocti the night of Aug. 24 and REO Speedwagon headlining the Aug. 25 awards ceremony show.
It”s a very active golfing week on the horizon in our neck of the woods. You can see the future of professional golf at the Olympic Club in San Francisco for the playing of the United States Amateur and you can also view the past stars of 49er and Raider Super Bowl teams of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It”ll be a great, inexpensive weekend to be a fan.
