Spring has finally come to Lake County. I know that is the case because my calendar tells me so. When I was a kid growing up in the Midwest, I was able to gauge the start of the new season by the playing of the Masters Tournament at Augusta National during the second week of April. Now that I live in sunny California, I use other golfing events to determine the coming of the new season.
Last weekend”s Lake County Partners Two Person Scramble had all the feeling of a new golfing season on the horizon even if my hands were frozen stiff and my face hurt from the stinging force of pelting hail stones. Competitive golf is one of those things that make me think it”s time for a new season, kind of like the way some folks view the opening day of the baseball season.
The Partners Scramble had a full field of 64 golfers with some interesting pairings of note. Six of the 32 teams were father-son duos. NCGA rules official Jack Lucich played with son, Joe, a Lower Lake High School class of 1978 grad better known for his basketball talents. Point Arena High School golf coach John Seed partnered up with his son Roby, who works for the Kyle Phillips Golf Architectural Firm in Roseville and has projects as far ranging as in China. Richard Steenwyck of Willits played with his son, Devon, a sophomore at Sonoma State.
Alex Goekken of Ukiah and his son, Seth, teamed up for the shot of the tournament, holing out a 3-wood to record the rarest of golfing feats, an albatross or a double eagle, meaning they were 3 under on one hole. Dr. Bob Jolin and his son, Mike, a one-man golf team at Clear Lake High School in the late 1990s, played together as well.
This columnist paired up once again with his son, Nick, a junior at Kelseyville High School and a two-time all-conference golfer. There is a changing of the guard in the Berry family as Nick has suddenly become the ?A” player in our two-man pairings. He hits his 5-iron 200 yards and he continues to be a much better putter. The only way I currently keep the partnership going is because I have a pretty solid wedge game, but it”s only a matter of time until he”ll eclipse that, too. As a 55-year-old, I”ll be playing in a handful of NCGA senior events this year, but I”m doing all I can to avoid the senior flight in local events. Ah, the winds of change ?
The winning team at the Partners was Jonathan Carlson and Jake Koschik. Both played on the same league championship team at Kelseyville High School in 1999. Carlson, a two-time Lake County Amateur champ and a qualifier at last year”s United States Mid-Amateur at Bandon dunes is definitely the ?A” player in this duo, but the two good friends do a lot of fishing together, where according to Carlson, Koschik is definitely the ?A” fisherman.
Carlson told an interesting story about Koschik over tournament weekend, one that I had never heard before even tough I was their coach at the time. Koschik was a historically slow starter in high school matches attributable to a case of the nerves and first-tee jitters. He just wasn”t comfortable having a handful of people watch him tee off.
In May of his senior year, Koschik did his senior speech on golf. Koschik took the class outside to the sloping grass lawn at Kelseyville High and explained to his teacher and some 30 fellow students, including Carlson, about hitting a golf ball. He then dropped five golf balls, took out a 3-iron, and without any uncertainty or nervousness, purely launched shot after shot over parked cars, then over the woodshop, over Konocti Road, landing softly into the end zone of the football field.
I”m not usually a victim of first-tee jitters, but I don”t think I could pull the trigger on that kind of a shot, and the way Carlson told the story, he felt the same way. You just never know what kind of shot will unnerve a golfer. It could be the first tee shot of the day, it could be the 3-foot putt, or in my case, it would be a 3-iron from a hanging lie over cars and buildings.
This past Thursday was another indication that spring is here. The seven golf teams that make up the Coastal Mountain Conference South met for their league opener at the Mount St. Helena Golf Course in Calistoga. A parkland-style nine-hole course with a par of 35, it is a great venue to open up the league season because of its user-friendliness. Simply put, it”s a lot easier than Bodega Harbour, Adobe Creek, Hidden Valley Lake and some of our other venues.
This is an especially fun time for me in my role as Kelseyville High School golf coach. My son Nick is a prime-time player as evidenced by his 71 on Thursday, and my daughter, Liz, a freshman, competed in her first league match at Mount St. Helena and played decently. Her very presence in high school golf now means that twice as many girls play in the CMC. Middletown sophomore Lisa Copeland, a four-time Lake County junior champion, is the only other girl golfer in a league of 40 boys. She was honorable mention all-CMC last year.
While last year”s Kelseyville team was the best in my 28 years of coaching, obviously the three members of last year”s team still have the heart of a champion. Jonathan Bridges shot an outstanding 69 and Hipolito Perez added a 78. They are self-motivated and in some ways they probably want to show that they can win a league title without last year”s top player, Brent Hamilton.
Spring is here. I know it is because the Lake County Circuit and the high school golf season have started up. The birdies have returned to Northern California.
