For such a relatively remote area with a small population base, Lake County has a fairly active local golf scene. Perhaps it is attributable to the fact that the region boasts five golf courses that are readily accessible to the golfing public. Regardless of the reason, two of California”s highly regarded golfers reside within the confines of Lake County and are once again the top area golfers.
Jonathan Carlson lives in Buckingham and up until August of this year worked in the pro shop at Hidden Valley Lake. A 1999 graduate of Kelseyville High School, Carlson played his collegiate golf at Point Loma University. Since his graduation in 2004, he has played amateur golf on a regional and most recently, a national level as he continues to stretch the boundaries of his skills and talents. The nephew of Babe Hiskey, a two-time winner on the PGA tour, and a student of Top 100 golf instructor Carl Lohren, Carlson has the pedigree of a top-notch player.
In 2008, Carlson qualified for the United States Amateur at storied in Pinehurst in North Carolina, a Donald Ross course that has hosted two U.S. Open championships. He shot 66-73 in the 36-hole Amateur qualifier at Shadow Lakes in Brentwood, the low aggregate total of the day. Carlson, who qualified for the 2007 U.S. Mid-Amateur at Bandon Dunes, is the only Lake county golfer to qualify for a USGA national tournament.
The 2008 season was highlighted by Carlson”s appearance in the Amateur, but he also had his share of other big moments. He won the prestigious Santa Rosa City championship, captured the Santa Rosa Two Man for the fourth consecutive year, was second in the Sacramento Amateur, and won his third consecutive Lake County Amateur title in October. At the Lake County Amateur, Carlson burst through a logjam atop the leader board by shooting a second-round 6-under-par 62 at Adams Springs to win by three strokes.
Ranked 12th by the NCGA for 2008, Carlson played on the winning NorCal team of amateurs in their Ryder Cup-style matches against the NorCal PGA team of professionals at Castlewood in October. In December, he played on the NCGA team in a losing effort against a team of amateurs from Southern California in the historic Seaver Cup Matches (named after Tom Seaver”s dad). The Seaver Cup was contested at PGA West in LaQuinta and Carlson played his singles match against top SoCal amateur John Pate, the brother of former Ryder Cupper Steve Pate.
Next year will bring more of the same for Jonathan, as he will continue to play competitive amateur golf. A career in the play-for-pay ranks is probably not in his future as Carlson is one of those few amateur golfers who is aware of how big the jump is to the world of professional golf. Nonetheless, to those local golfers who have played with Carlson this past year, he is definitely in a league of his own on the local level.
Lisa Copeland is the female golfer of the year. A Hidden Valley Lake resident who is a junior at Middletown High School, Copeland had a breakout year in Northern California golf circles. She finished third at the NCGA Girls Junior at Lake Merced in San Francisco this summer. She qualified for the California Girls Junior at historic Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach, and although she was eliminated in the round of 32, she was defeated in that match by the eventual state champion, T.J. Kliebphipat of Panorama City.
On the regional level, Copeland has shown that she knows how to win. She took home first place in the Fortuna City Junior, the Beau Pre Junior, the Benbow Junior, the Pepsi Junior at Baywood and Beau Pre, and the Top of the Bay Junior at Santa Rosa and Windsor. She also won her fifth consecutive Lake County junior title in August at Adams Springs. Lisa was such a fixture at junior tournaments in the Eureka area that she was named the Humboldt County junior golf of the year for 2008. Like Carlson, she played in a regional team format, playing for the JGANC team at Poppy H ills in Pebble Beach against a team of junior girls from Southern California.
Copeland played on her high school boys” team in the spring, made a hole-in-one on the 16th hole in a Coastal Mountain Conference match at Adobe Creek in Petaluma, and was named to the All-CMC second team. In the fall, she won the CMC girls” tournament at Adams Springs with a 77, shot 71 at Oakmont East in the North Coast Section Championships and advanced to the Tournament of Champions.
At the TOC, Lisa shot 36-44 – 80 in a driving rainstorm at Oakmont West and then birdied the first extra playoff hole to qualify for the NorCals at Corral de Tierra on the Monterey Peninsula. Copeland is the first CMC student-athlete, boy or girl, to qualify for high school golf”s NorCals. For her high school golfing exploits, she was honored by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat as its athlete of the week in mid-November.
Obviously when you”re a 16-year-old and a scratch golfer with an A grade point average, life is good. Next up for the Lake County female golfer of the year is the recruiting game as Copeland is beginning to hear from NCAA Division I and Division II universities about college golf and scholarships.
Showing just a little bit of parental bias, the round of the year in Lake County for 2008 was recorded by Nick Schaefer, a 17-year-old senior at Kelseyville High School who just so happens to be my stepson. Nick carved out a seven-birdie, one-bogey 6-under-par 66 in early August to win the Buckingham Junior Classic. The No. 1 golfer at KHS and a three-time All-CMC golfer, Schaefer also won the Lake County Junior at Adams Springs and had a top-five finish at the NCGA Parent-Child at Poppy Ridge in Livermore.
Next week we”ll focus again on the Lake County golf scene, including the four division winners on the Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit, the new Tom Weiskopf course going in at Langtry Farms, and the arrival of Lake County”s newest PGA golf professional, three-time Ryder Cupper Johnny Pott.
Happy holidays!
