There remains but 11 days until the conclusion of the 2014 calendar year and this week we”re going to review the local golf scene in Lake County. The Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit hosted its 22nd season of tournament golf, the Middletown High School golf team finished in second place in the Coastal Mountain Conference standings, the local golf industry was about as financially weak as the economy, and golf finances and politics were an election issue at Hidden Valley Lake. Could a course with increased play since 2010 really lose $694,243?
While participation was once again down at the majority of tourneys on the Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit, the local amateur tour nonetheless hosted another season of nine open events, one senior tourney and two junior events. In the season-long race for the On The Links Golfer of the Year honors, Billy Witt of Clear Lake Riviera garnered top honors for the second time, having also finished atop the standings in 2010. While one can argue that Brad Pendleton of Lakeport is the most talented amateur golfer in the area, Witt proved otherwise this past April by handily defeating Pendleton in the finals of the Lake County Match Play Championship by a 4 and 2 margin as well as winning the prestigious Lake County Open by a three-stroke margin over Pendleton later in the month. Witt was part of the winning trio at the Lake County Three Man and partnered up with Shawn Auten to win a six-hole playoff in capturing the Lake County Alternate Shot. He finished second at the Lake County Amateur and third in the County One Man. Witt played in eight of nine circuit events and finished 190 player performance points ahead of Pendleton. For Billy Witt, 2014 was a very good year.
Long-hitting Jerry Pangle of Lakeport is the On The Links Senior Golfer of the Year. Pangle played in all 10 circuit events open to members of the over-50 set and won a tightly contested yearlong battle with Leonard Lea. He won the Lake County Senior Match Play with a final round 2 and 1 victory over Craig Kinser. Pangle finished runner-up in five circuit tourneys, including the One Man, the Open, the Three Man, the Partners Better Ball, and the Alternate Shot. Last February, Pangle lost a four-way, sudden-death playoff to Lea in the One Man and trailed him for the entire season, only passing him at the season-concluding Lake County Tournament of Champions following a third-place finish. Pangle has played on the circuit since its formation.
Dr. Bob Jolin of Lakeport finished atop the On The Links Senior Net Golfer of the Year standings for the second consecutive year. Jolin competed in nine of 10 tournaments and while he didn”t win any of them, he finished runner-up in five tourneys and finished third, fourth, fifth, and sixth in the rest.
The On The Links Net Golfer of the Year is a one-year wonder who will never win the title again. That”s because he isn”t all that far away from being an impact golfer on the championship flight level. Matt Wotherspoon of Buckingham transitioned from eighth grade to high school this year, won the Lake County Junior for the second time as well as the Buckingham Junior, and played against adults on a regular basis. He came within a whisker of qualifying for the Drive, Chip and Putt finals at Augusta National. He missed two Lake County Circuit events this year, one to play in a basketball tournament and the other to attend eighth-grade graduation. In between Matt grew from a bogey golfer to a single-digit handicap golfer who showed the ability to not only outplay but also outthink his fellow competitors. Wotherspoon won the Three Man and the Alternate Shot, lost a three-way playoff in the Lake County Open, and had top-six finishes in his other tournaments.
Last spring, the six-team high school Coastal Mountain Conference grew to seven teams as Clear Lake High School under the direction of Ted Matilla, Buckingham”s PGA professional, fielded a golf team for the first time since the Jeff Mertle and Casey Dye era of the early 1990s. St. Vincent de Paul High School of Petaluma won the conference title for the fifth consecutive year while a solid Middletown High School team led by All-Conference golfers Chasen Tom, Riley Adams and James Crayne finished in second place. Sophie Sells, a three-time winner of the girls” division of the Lake County Junior, was second-team All-Conference in the spring as a member of the Kelseyville High School boys” team and qualified for the North Coast Section girls” championship at Blue Rock Springs in Vallejo in the fall.
Lake County has five golf courses open to the public and while they don”t historically release annual rounds of golf played at their facilities, it is reasonable to believe that golf participation was down in our area in 2014. In tough economic times, golf is an entertainment extra, not a necessity. People will find a way to pay the rent and the electric bill and will find ways to budget what is left over, but things such as the movies, eating out, and, for that matter, golf, become a secondary consideration. In a nutshell, not as many rounds of golf were played in Lake County this year and as a result golf revenues were down at most facilities.
While the four nine-hole golf courses in Lake County are owned by entities or proprietors, the 18-hole Hidden Valley Lake Golf Course is part of a homeowners association. Ownership at golf courses such as Adams Springs and Buckingham don”t necessarily share their finances and profit/loss statements, but Hidden Valley Lake is very public about the finances, management and direction of its outstanding Billy Bell-designed course. This past year the Lake County golfing public became aware of a rift between segments of the golf course community. It has been stated that just 13 precent of HVL residents play golf there and just 6 percent own golfing memberships (Sky Pile: Golf and sustainability in Hidden Valley Lake). Pile”s overall theme is that the non-golfing residents are supplementing the price of golf to the benefit of the golfing residents. There was even a movement afoot to close one of the nines at Hidden Valley Lake, a gesture that forces a golf purist like myself to shake my head in total wonderment.
It does seem incomprehensible that HVL loses as much money as it does on its golf operation and restaurant. Hopefully calm heads will prevail and budgetary belts will be tightened before something draconian happens to another Northern California golf entity.
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas. May your stocking be filled with birdies and pars.
