This past Monday afternoon, Blaine Ruggio of Middletown High School tapped in his final putt on his final hole, bringing to an end a stellar four-year high school golf career. A three-time All-Coastal Mountain Conference golfer, Ruggio was playing at Contra Costa Country Club in the second stage of the state high school golf playoffs, namely the North Coast Section Tournament of Champions.
Ruggio”s last putt put a closing exclamation point on the 2011 high school golf season locally, one that may well represent a changing of the guard as well as the beginning of the decline of junior golf in Lake County. Blame it on the economy or blame it on kids choosing different avenues of entertainment, yet there is no doubt that it was a down year for local high school golfers.
Weather was a big part of the story. For the second year in a row, rainouts and snowouts were the norm. I recall a time from the early 1990s through 2005 when high school golf matches were always played. Cancellation was never an issue. Sure, the kids had to play in the rain or amongst snowflakes, but there was never a season during that 15-year span like 2011, or, for that matter, like 2010 or 2006.
Golfers are used to playing in inclement weather. However, when you have several weeks of steady rain, golf courses need time to recover. Courses have to catch up on cutting fairways, tees and greens. Often the rain washes the sand out of the bunkers, or, in the case of the 2011 spring storms, heavy wind can do damage to the trees that define the fairways. It”s tough to putt with a fallen tree embedded in the green.
This year”s golf preseason got off to a late start because of the snowstorms at the end of February. In the case of the Kelseyville High School golf team, noted for having the most aggressive schedule among the local programs, it was the ultimate season of stop-and-start golf.
KHS had exactly one golf course practice in early March prior to its March 10 match at Little River on the Mendocino coast. The following Monday, the Knights went to Stevinson Ranch outside Turlock to compete in the Hilmar Tournament. Leaving Turlock that Monday afternoon, the temperature was 80 degrees and the van”s air conditioning was on. Then the mid-March storms hit and Kelseyville wouldn”t play or practice for 14 days, when they finally went to the San Leandro Tournament at Tony Lema. Four varsity matches and two junior varsity matches had to be canceled because of golf course weather-related damage. League would finally get under way three weeks late with the inaugural match at Rooster Run in Petaluma on March 30.
And so it went. The end of a rough March led to an April 7 match at Adams Springs that featured snow flurries throughout the round. April did get better, but there were too many canceled practices, frantic make-up matches, and scheduling chaos. No, it was not the best of times.
Participation was down in 2011 also. Teams reported far fewer kids than usual on their rosters. Perhaps the economy and the cost of the game were to blame. Maybe the lack of a Tiger Woods-dominated PGA Tour hurt interest. Nonetheless, most Redwood Empire teams had smaller numbers on their golf rosters. Some schools dropped JV programs, and the only regulars in the JV series this year were Ukiah, St. Vincent of Petaluma and Kelseyville.
A high school golf schedule can be supplemented beyond league play with non-league matches and invitational tournaments. In the case of KHS golf, non-league matches on the schedule included Napa High (at Chardonnay), Mercy of Redding, and the CMC North schools. KHS also competes in tournaments at Stevinson Ranch, Tony Lema, Tracy Country Club, and Ukiah Muni.
The Ukiah High School Tournament is the poster child for the way things have changed in high school golf. A $300 entry fee to this event pays for green fees for six players, an umbrella tee prize for each golfer, a sack lunch, an after-tournament barbecue, awards, trophies, and a long-drive contest. Historically, the Ukiah Tournament featured 20 teams from throughout Northern California. For the last two years, the field has included just 12 teams ? Kelseyville, Ukiah and 10 Sonoma County teams from the North Bay and Sonoma County leagues. No longer does Paradise or Alhambra or Fortuna play in the Ukiah event. Blame it on school budgets, blame it on the cost of gas or blame it on the difficulty one encounters when fundraising in tough economic times.
Finally, from the local perspective, we see fewer kids than before in the 8-13 age range playing on area courses with their dad or their grandpa. The top five high school golfers of the last three years, namely Doug Quinones, Lisa Copeland, Hipolito Perez Jr., Jonathan Bridges and Nick Schaefers, all started playing golf with parents well before their 10th birthday. They competed in junior tournaments locally as 9-year-olds, played in club events against adults while still in their adolescent years, and received added mentoring from area professionals and top-notch amateur golfers.
For the past three years, Buckingham”s PGA professional, Mark Wotherspoon, and this columnist have noticed a drop-off in the entries to the summer junior golf tourneys as well as a smaller group of kids competing in the 10-12 age brackets. Either Kelseyville or Middletown or sometimes both have had teams make the playoffs every year since 1994. This year marked the first time neither school had a team entry in the North Coast Section playoffs. While All-CMC golfers Corey Humber and Wyatt Ferrell of Kelseyville and Daniel Eagle of Middletown will be returning next year, both teams have a lack of depth. Tomales dropped golf this year and Calistoga may follow suit next year.
Sometimes at small schools you have football players and other years you have clarinet players. Right now, there are fewer high school golfers than in the past. Blame it on the economy or blame it on the weather or blame it on Tiger. It”s just the way it is right now.
