The Lake County Tournament of Champions tees it up this morning at Buckingham Golf and Country Club alongside the base of Mount Konocti. The TOC is the 11th and final event on the Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit calendar. It marks the conclusion of the 16th season for the local golf tour.
At the conclusion of the day, there will be TOC champions crowned in the championship, senior, net and senior net flights. Yet while today”s field of competitors will be attempting to win their division of the TOC, there will also be a tournament played within the tournament as the season-long races conclude for the On the Links Golfer of the Year.
In the championship flight, four golfers have a mathematical chance to win golfer of the year honors. Juan Lopez of Finley, a five-time golfer of the year (2002-05, 2008), is currently third in points while Kelseyville High School golf coach John Berry, the 1995 golfer of the year, is in fourth. Both have a slim chance of finishing in first place, but that would require an individual win coupled with golfers ahead of them failing to finish in the top 10. At best it”s a faint possibility.
Currently, Paul Moore of Ukiah, the 2006-07 golfer of the year, has a slim 15-point lead over Nick Schaefer, the 2009 Coastal Mountain Conference high school golfer of the year and a freshman at U.C. Davis. The Moore-Schaefer scenario is simple. The low score in the TOC, as long as both players finish in the top five, gets golfer of the year honors. Should both golfers finish outside the top five, then Schaefer would have to finish two places ahead of Moore.
The net division for golfers with handicaps of 10 and higher is also tightly contested but not as simplistic. Carl Knipping of Lakeport, the 2004 net golfer of the year, leads Jack Lucich of Clearlake by 30 points. Lucich, a rules official for the NCGA and NorCal PGA, was the net golfer of the year in 2003. Jason Laveglia of Clear Lake Riviera is 65 points behind Knipping. If Lucich wins the net TOC, then he finishes atop the standings. If he finishes in the top five, then he would need to finish two places ahead of Knipping. Should Laveglia win the TOC, he would have to have a dual scenario where Lucich finished second and Knipping finished fourth for it all to work out for him in the golfer of the year race.
Craig Kinser of Lakeport has had an outstanding campaign in his first full season in the senior division, winning the Lake County Open, the Three Man, the Partners, the Lake County Amateur and last week”s Senior Amateur. Dennis Layton of Kelseyville, the 2005 senior golfer of the year, is 180 points behind Kinser. A 10th-place finish or better will garner Kinser senior golfer of the year honors. In the senior net division, Dave Herrick has already clinched his division because of wins in the Two Man, Lake County Open, the Partners, and the Match Play. He leads Fred Figg of Lakeport by 220 points. Only 200 points is available to the winner in the TOC.
Meanwhile, the Nationwide Tour, the AAA minor league circuit, concludes its 20th year of operation Sunday at Daniel Island in Charleston, South Carolina. Also a tournament within a tournament, there is a $1 million purse at stake in the Nationwide Tour Championships as well as the added caveat of the top 25 money winners for the season obtaining PGA Tour cards for 2010.
Michael Sim of Australia is atop the Nationwide Tour money list with $536,142 in earnings through 13 events. He has three wins, including one at Stonebrae in Hayward last April. He also finished 18th at the United States Open at Bethpage Black. The bubble guys on the Nationwide Tour currently sit at about $165,000 and probably need to finish the season with close to $180,000 to safely secure a PGA Tour card.
The most crucial financial stat comparing the Nationwide Tour to the PGA Tour comes from the PGA Tour”s Web site. The average yearly take on the Nationwide Tour is $55,180. The PGA Tour average is a whopping $948,105. Michael Sim would only rank 134th on the PGA Tour and the second-ranked Nationwide money winner, Chad Collins, would be 156th. Obviously the big money is on the PGA Tour.
With 25 professional golfers obtaining tour cards for 2010, there are an equal number of pros who will not be playing with exempt status next year. Following last week”s PGA Tour event in Las Vegas, there was some minor movement among the bubble guys.
Bill Lunde made the cut on the number and finished tied for 27th, earning $26,230. He is now ranked 124th on the money list and is about $16,000 ahead in the race to keep his tour card. He”ll need to keep making cuts to survive.
David Duval missed the cut at Vegas and fell to 121st. Ricky Barnes also missed the cut and dropped to 119th. Former British Open champ Todd Hamilton missed the cut and fell out of the top 125, moving to 127th. Rich Beem, the winner of the PGA Championship over Tiger Woods at Hazeltine in 2002, was looking good after 36 holes in Vegas, shooting 69-64 to find himself in the top 10. A dreadful 75 on Saturday followed by a Sunday 64 tied him with Lunde for 27th. All that did was get him up to 120th place on the money list, a very unsafe place to be with three events remaining.
The Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit concludes this weekend with the playing of the Lake County Tournament of Champions. The Nationwide Tour concludes its 20th season this weekend in South Carolina. These golf tours are light years apart, and yet the pressure will be equally internal for those trying to attain golfer of the year honors or a home on the 2010 PGA Tour. It”s why pros and amateurs alike play the game.
