Last May I drove down to beautiful San Ramon for a meeting of the North Coast Section golf governing board. All of the conferences from the NCS were present for what would be a radical reconfiguration of high school golf in our region. Along with Mike Armstrong of Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco, I was there to promote our concept of a small schools golf division.
In 1983 when I first brought the Kelseyville High School boys” golf team to the sectional playoffs at Sunol, we were one of 10 teams at NCS. At that time there were 34 high school boys” golf programs in the section and there was no such thing as girls” golf. The Coastal Mountain Conference consisted of three teams and the North Bay League and the Sonoma County League combined to form a four-team league.
Lots of things have changed in 27 years. I could be off a school or two, but I believe that there are 131 boys” teams in the NCS and some 90 girls” teams now. Unlike 1983, more and more teams were involved in the quest to get into the playoffs. By the turn of the century, there was a four-tiered playoff system with 40 teams and 48 individuals meeting at two separate sites during week one. After that, week two was the TOC, week three was the NorCals, and the state finals were contested during week four.
It was at that time that fingers started to get pointed. The league champs and a select number of at-large teams would get into round one, but that also meant that 91 teams were eliminated. Just like NCAA basketball, some of those teams on the outside had gripes. The debate was that the third- or fourth-place team from a large conference contended that it was more deserving of a playoff berth than the first-place team from a small conference. No one ever pointed the finger in the direction of Kelseyville, mainly because we were historically competitive. Nonetheless, the bigger conferences did have issues with some of the small school league champs who were averaging scores in the 90s and the 100s.
A small school division of the NCS was a solution that found support from both ends of the spectrum. Plus, as an aside, should a school think it could compete on a higher level, it could always opt up to Division I, something KHS golf would have probably done in the Brels Solomon-Shawn Auten and the Brent Hamilton-Nick Schaefer eras. More kids would get playoff exposure, twice as many teams would play in the NCS playoffs, and there would now be two section champs instead of one, just like we have six section champs in basketball.
Of course, with this expanded format, there suddenly became a need for more tourney sites. Unlike high school football fields and gymnasiums, it”s difficult to find suitable venues for golf. Not every golf course is willing to take on a high school tournament, plus there also has to be some sort of infrastructure for hotels and eating establishments. A place such as Sea Ranch on the Sonoma County coast might make for a neat venue, but where would the players stay and eat?
With all this in mind, Kelseyville High School applied to host the NCS Girls” Championship for the fall of 2010. I especially wanted to bring the inaugural girls” NCS Division II Championship to Lake County. I knew it would boost the local economy and I felt that Buckingham would be a really good course because of its lack of forced carries as well as its topography, which often forces off-line shots back into play.
What I didn”t realize when I first applied for the Division II site was the caliber of the participating teams. I knew that teams such as Healdsburg and Arcata were valid small school teams that would do well in their respective leagues, but I was surprised when schools such as Moreau Catholic of Hayward and Piedmont High School won their leagues and advanced to Buckingham. Both schools play in mixed leagues of big and small schools, so their very presence was an added boost to the field.
As the tourney date neared, I had some intangible worries. Running the event was a non-issue for me as I run close to 30 tournaments annually, including the Lake County Amateur. However, there was a pretty brutal forecast of heavy rain for the weekend. On top of that, my always-loyal rules official, Jack Lucich, was officiating PGA Tour Q School at Dayton Valley outside Carson City. I feared a heavy dumping of snow in the Sierras would strand him in Nevada.
However, my worries were unfounded. The weather cleared and the course drained wonderfully. Lucich got through the mountains and was back in Lake County. The field of 68 teed it up at 8:15 a.m. this past Monday, the play was rock sold, with the more talented girls shooting in the high 70s, and there was a real Americana feel to the tournament with the girls and their supportive galleries. When all was said and done by late Monday afternoon, I knew that the first Division II Girls” Championship had been a big hit.
Obviously, no one call pull this off on his own. Thanks are in order to the Buckingham Men”s Club and specifically Roy Bruce, Ed McComb, Al Mankins, Ed Slevin, Dennis Layton and Ted Knowles for their ability to feed 140 players, coaches and parents with a great barbecue luncheon. Thanks to my wife Julie, Cindy Maynard of St. Vincent High School and Thad Owens of Middletown High School for running the check-in and scoring table. Thanks to Buckingham”s PGA head golf professional Ted Matilla for scorecard development and PGA director of golf Mark Wotherspoon for being the site host. Thanks to Jack Lucich for being a great rules guy. You can always tell when the rules people are top notch because no one was disqualified. Thanks to Ed Jacobsen for his volunteer forecaddie efforts and to Renee Lopez, our outstanding photographer. Finally thanks are in order to Brunos Foods and the Clear Lake Callayomi Lodge for their generous donations.
All in all, Monday was a very good day for girls” golf and the local community did a great job of making it all go so very well. As for me, there is no rest for the weary. I”ve got to start thinking about the boys” Division II tournament that I”m running on May 9.
