Lake County”s two junior golf tournaments of note (the Buckingham Summer Junior Championship and the Lake County Junior Golf Championship) tee it up 10 and 11 days from now, respectively.
Both tournaments have been on the county golf calendar since the mid-1990s when Shawn Auten of Cobb and Brels Solomon of Upper Lake, then golfing teammates at Kelseyville High School, ruled the area junior-golf ranks prior to playing collegiate golf.
The Buckingham Summer Junior Golf Championship will be contested the morning of Aug. 7 at Buckingham Golf and Country Club, with the first tee time commencing at 10 a.m.
The Lake County Junior Golf Championship will be played the following day, Aug. 8, at Adams Springs Golf Course on Cobb Mountain. The first tee time will be at 8 am.
Both tournaments are similarly formatted with boys” and girls” flights ranging in age from 10-17 years old. There are multiple divisions with age breakdowns at 10-11 years, 12-13 years, 14-15 years and 16-17 years of age.
The courses are also set up with age in mind. The 16- and 17-year-olds will play Buckingham”s opening par four first hole at a distance of 400 yards whereas the 10- and 11-year-old kids will play the same hole from a forward tee measuring 270 yards.
Each tournament charges a $15 entry fee, which includes golf, lunch, tee prizes (of golf balls, towels, or caps) and trophies to the overall boys” and girls” champs as well as first-place and runner-up trophies to the age division winners.
Once again, the Buckingham Men”s Golf Club donated the money to pay for the trophies.
Other donors to the junior golf tournaments include the Clearlake Callayomi Masonic Lodge, Eddie and Linda Mullins (the owners of Adams Springs), NCGA rules official Jack Lucich and his wife Sharon, the Hoberg family of Cobb Mountain, and myself and Julie Berry.
Ted Mattila, the PGA golf professional at Buckingham, is the tournament director for the Buckingham Junior, and I am the tournament director for the Lake County Junior.
Last year at this time, Daniel Eagle of Middletown High School won the Buckingham Junior in a five-shot runaway. He carded a 4-over-par 76. During the midpoint of his round, he recorded five birdies over a nine-hole stretch.
Aaron Waldrop of Middletown High School won the 14-15 year old division with a score of 91, and Matt Wotherspoon of Mountain Vista Middle School shot a nine-hole score of 50 to win the 10-11 age division.
Sophie Sells of Kelseyville High School won the girls” overall title and Madison Witt won the 10-11 age division for girls.
The Lake County Junior was more tightly contested as Corey Huber of Kelseyville High School shot a 76 at Adams Springs to beat classmate and teammate Wyatt Ferrell by two shots. Eagle was three shots further back with a score of 81.
Waldrop won his age division with an 87, Logan Barrick of Mountain Vista won the 12-13 age division and Wotherspoon shot a dynamic 45 to win his age division.
Sells made it two in a row as she won the girls” title at Adams Springs.
This time around, the good news for the rest of the boys in the 10-11 year old age bracket is that Wotherspoon — who won last year”s junior tourneys by 10 and 14 shots, respectively — has graduated to the 12-13 age division ranks.
In the spirit of Doug Quinones and Blaine Ruggio, former Middletown High School golfers who played heavy summer junior schedules and played on the NorCal Junior Cup team, and in the spirit of Kelseyville High School”s Nick Schaefer who went to USGA qualifiers for the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Junior Amateur, and the National Public Links in faraway Fernley, Nev., Eagle has had an active summer schedule of competitive golf.
Playing in a Junior Golf Association of Northern California (JGANC) tourney at Diamond Oaks in Roseville, Eagle shot a 2-over-par 74 and finished second in a large field. He survived the draconian heat in the 36-hole (all in one day) U.S. Junior Amateur Qualifier in Woodland, finishing in the middle of the pack.
Most impressively, he carded a 5-under-par 67 at the Windsor Golf Club, former site of the Web.com Tour. Eagle”s round at Windsor featured nine birdies and was part of the two-day Santa Rosa Junior, run under the umbrella of the JGANC.
I had a bit of a junior-golf walk down memory lane a couple of weeks ago while watching the U.S. Senior Open, contested at Indianwood Golf and Country Club in Michigan.
In my time, there were no active junior tourneys in our area. However, we found our own way to compete through caddie tournaments and high school events.
The 36-hole leader at Indianwood, who ended up with a top-10 finish, was PGA Tour caddie Lance Ten Broeck.
I grew up with Ten Broeck who was a member at Beverly Country Club as well as a caddie. He was three years younger than me, and yet by the age of 12, you could tell that he had enormous talent.
He was the youngest of eight children; his dad, Willis, was a multiple club champion at Beverly; and he had two brothers, Jimmy and Ricky, who played college golf. I recall going with Lance and two other friends to Cog Hill when Lance was 13 years old and the rest of us were 16-year-olds.
We never wanted to play against Lance at Beverly where he consistently shot in the low 70s, so we took him to a tough course that he had never played before. All of us shot in the mid-70s, except for Lance who shot 85. I recall his dad giving me a hard time in the pro shop the next day for hustling his son out of $20.
By the time he was 16 and I was 19, I wanted no part of him in a money game. At age 17, Lance got to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur, beating Peter Jacobsen in the third round. At age 19 he qualified for the 1975 U.S. Open at neighboring Medinah.
He went to the University of Texas (playing a couple of years after Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw), was a two time All-American, joined the PGA Tour and had lots of fun on tour for some 20-plus years.
When he got to his mid-40s, he started caddying on tour for Jesper Parnevik, later did so for Robert Allenby and nowadays for Tim “Lumpy” Herron.
Yet he still has game as evidenced by his stellar play in the U.S. Senior Open and by his occasional forays onto the PGA Tour where he caddies during the morning time bracket and then plays as a last-minute alternate in the afternoon time frame.
Personally, I owe a bit of thanks to Ten Broeck. When I was 15 years old and the owner of a two handicap, I thought seriously about becoming a PGA Tour professional. By the time I was 18 and saw how good Lance was, I knew I should get a degree.
