The Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit tees it up for the start of its 22nd season of competition with the playing of the Lake County One-Man Scramble at Buckingham Golf and Country Club. The scramble format in golf is oftentimes used in charity golf tournaments with a team of four or five golfers playing the best shot of the group. In the case of the One-Man Scramble, the contestant plays his own shot and then has the option to do it a second time.
The One-Man Scramble format is relatively new to the world of tournament golf. It has been around on a national level for just about 10 years. Although it is called a scramble, it is also the ultimate mulligan-fest. If you hit your tee shot off line and pull it into a fairway bunker, you can tee it up once again and attempt to avoid the bunker and keep it in play. You get to play the better of the two shots, so in the event your second shot is even worse than the ball in the bunker, you can always ignore it and play the original shot.
I have a difficult time with the One-Man Scramble format because by the end of the round you feel like you’ve walked 18 holes but that you’ve hit the ball for 36 holes. Physically it has always worn me down as I find myself as a 60-something with a knee that keeps getting bigger and bigger. On the other hand, I truly like the strategic element of the event. For instance, if I were to hit the ball up the middle on the 425-yard first hole at Buckingham and find that I still have 200 yards left to the green, the One-Man Scramble allows me to hit a 4-hybrid for my first shot to the right of the water and come up safely some 30 yards of the green. Then with my mulligan shot, I can pull out a 2-hybrid, start my ball over the water and attack the green. If the ball should carry the water and land on the green, then I’ve got a putt for a birdie on a relatively tough opening hole. If my ball comes up shot and lands in the drink, then I play the safe ball and try to hit a wedge close for my par.
Of course, the area that one can really move up the leader board in the One-Man Scramble is near the greens as well as on the moss. In the above scenario, if I were to hit my 30-yard wedge shot to 10 feet, then I could adjust to the speed of the green and try to hit my shot even closer. In the case of putting, if I barely miss a 10-foot putt to the right of the cup, then I know to start my mulligan putt just a little bit left of where I had begun the original putt.
Begun in 1994 as a four-tournament circuit, the Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit has developed into a nine-month extravaganza with a variety of formats for championship flight golfers (scratch), net golfers with handicaps of 10 and higher, and senior divisions for old-timers age 50 and older. The original four-event calendar was put together by Buckingham PGA golf professional Mark Wotherspoon and this columnist. Wotherspoon, who relocated from the Inland Empire to Lake County in 1992, had introduced the Lake County Open that year. I had been actively involved in the resurgence of the Lake County Amateur in 1992 after a seven-year hiatus. Wotherspoon added his member-guest tournament as a Two-Man Better Ball event and a Tournament of Champions was added to include those individuals who had won local events on the club level.
Down through the years the circuit has grown by leaps and bounds. There is a Two-Man Scramble held in March and a Three-Man Scramble that is scheduled for May. There is an Alternate Shot tourney for a two-man team in October. The Better Ball is in late June. On the individual level, there is a Match Play event that is contested in early April. The Tournament of Champions, which used to open the season in the early days of the circuit, is now the season-concluding tournament held in late October. The two major 36-hole stroke play tournaments are part of the original Lake County Circuit calendar — the Lake County Open held in late April at Buckingham and the Lake County Amateur contested at Adams Springs Golf Course on Cobb Mountain in early October. The circuit also holds a one-day Senior Amateur Championship in late May and two junior tourneys for children ages 8-17.
The circuit also recognizes the top players in the championship, net, senior and senior net divisions every year. The PGA Tour ranks its top performers on the basis of Fed Ex Cup points. The Lake County Circuit has a similar point system although the Lake County Circuit was doing this sort of thing long before the PGA Tour invented its yearlong points system. Just like the tour system that awards more points for the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, and PGA Championship as well as the World Golf Championship events, the Lake County Circuit offers double points for its three major stroke play events, namely the Open, the Amateur and the TOC.
At the conclusion of the Lake County Two-Man Scramble on March 22, the circuit will recognize its four overall points champions from 2014. The On The Links Golfer of the Year for 2014 is Billy Witt. Witt was also was the GOY in 2010. The Senior Golfer of the Year is Jerry Pangle, one of the few lasting relics from the early days of the Lake County Circuit that featured the likes of Gary Bagnani, Charles Creecy and George Hoberg Jr. The Senior Net Golfer of the Year is Dr. Bob Jolin, a regular on the circuit during the past 22 years as well as a very strong mid-level handicap golfer. The Net Golfer of the Year is Kelseyville High School freshman Matt Wotherspoon, who is already penciled in as the No. 1 golfer on his high school team. Wotherspoon already has won two Lake County Junior titles.
The main key to winning a golfer of the year award is to play well throughout the year as well as enter all, if not most, of the events throughout the calendar year. The other key to capturing the overall title is having a rock-solid partner in the four team events. I know this firsthand as a former Golfer of the Year and a two-time Senior Golfer of the Year — Bagnani in 1995 and Pangle in 2012 and 2013 — got me through those three seasons and atop the points list.
The Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit commences its 22nd season at Buckingham. While the calendar says it’s Feb. 21, it’s pretty obvious that spring is already in the air and the 2015 competitive amateur golf season is upon us.
