For the past six weeks, I’ve had a lot of “would have been” thoughts going through my head. Sometimes I even go semi-public with them. For instance, way back during the afternoon of Wednesday, March 25, I sent Richard Pritchard a text message. Richard is the director of golf at Hidden Valley Lake Golf Course and doubles as the outstanding golf coach at Middletown High School. My text message basically said that were all things normal, I would have been standing on the valley floor of Hidden Valley Lake’s 15th fairway that day, watching the high school golfers hitting off the upper tee box on HVL’s signature hole. Alas, there was no Coastal Mountain Conference high school golf match that day.
This past Tuesday, I would have been running the CMC’s league championship at Oakmont Country Club in Santa Rosa’s Valley of the Moon. The CMC finals are always a feel good moment. Middletown High School was the class of the CMC this year and they would have been garnering their first conference title since the 1998 MHS team led by Robbie Norris, Willie Leuzinger, and Joey Myers. Perhaps Kelseyville High School golfers Cory Holt, Lalo Sepulveda, and Cody Horning would have been receiving recognition as all-conference golfers for the 2020 season. Alas, there was no CMC Championship this year.
Normally I would be preparing for Sunday’s journey to McKinleyville in Humboldt County. The top team from our league advances as do the top five individual golfers. I have a pretty strong feeling that I would have been heading to Beau Pre Golf Course for Monday’s North Coast Section Division II Championship along with a couple of the KHS golfers. Of course, that too has been cancelled as well.
Spring 2020 marked my 38th season as the golf coach at Kelseyville High School. While every season is uniquely different, I always look forward to the beginning of spring and the start of the high school golf season. Instead the KHS golfers practiced solidly for one month throughout February, played a non-league match versus El Molino High School at the iconic Northwood Golf Club alongside the Russian River, competed in the inaugural CMC match at Rooster Run in Petaluma, and then had the plug pulled on their season. Thanks to Matt Levesque, Shane Boehlert, and PGA professional Bob MacDonald for their help with KHS golf this past season.
Whether they play spring sports or not, the kids I empathize with are the students who are graduating from high school within the next few weeks. They would have been attending their senior prom, their senior trip, and graduation ceremony. Yes, these are trying times.
Cypress College golf star Matt Wotherspoon had the plug pulled on his season in mid-March as well. He got in five collegiate tournaments, but the rest of the season for all community college athletes in California was cancelled. Matt had a chance to perhaps receive recognition as an all-state juco golfer, but that honor will have to stay on hold for another year. The NCAA and the CCCAA have decided to give spring sport athletes another year of eligibility to compete on the collegiate level. At this time, Matt is strongly contemplating returning to Cypress for his “second” sophomore campaign.
The only real dilemma with all this is the reality that there will be a backlog of athletes at those schools, regardless of the sport or the level. In the case of Cypress, the eight sophomores and freshmen on the team have the option to return, but they will also be joined by student-athletes who are currently in their final year of high school. This will make for either expanded rosters or the reality of kids getting cut because too many are trying out for the team in the spring of 2021.
Lake County’s three golf courses reopened last Friday with a series of preconditions. They include raised or inverted cups, no flagsticks on the greens, no ball washers, no rakes in the bunkers, one golfer per motorized cart, and twosomes only. Social distancing requirements need to be maintained. While the management of all three courses is overjoyed to be open once again, there is a different thought line that goes into this new world order. For instance, at a nine hole facility like Adams Springs or Buckingham, the course can fill up pretty fast. Normally you could get approximately 13 or 14 foursomes on a nine hole course, meaning 56 golfers are out there. Now you have 13 twosomes out playing, so while your parking lot doesn’t look especially packed, you end up turning people away because the course itself is packed. By the way, I want to publicly thank Lake County’s District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown for his big assist in reopening out-of-doors activities to the residents of Lake County.
The major league baseball season is on hold, which means I won’t be complaining about the Giants lack of hitting the way I normally do by early May. The NBA playoffs are on hold for the time being, but then again I wasn’t going to have to rearrange my schedule to watch the Warriors for the next two months because whenever the hoops season concludes, Golden State won’t be a part of the playoff picture. As of this moment, my only real sports highlight is watching the ESPN series on Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls, and the “Last Dance” season of 1998. This month’s PGA Championship at Harding Park and the LPGA tournament at Lake Merced are also on hold as well. The good news is that they are postponed and not cancelled.
Local tournaments are in the same boat as well. For instance, area clubs would be holding qualifying for their four man teams to go to Monterey to compete in the NCGA Zone Tournament. Those tourneys are on hold at this time. The Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit had to postpone its Match Play Championship and the Lake County Open during the month of April. The May tournament on the LCAGC is the Three Man Championship. Regardless of the status of area golf courses, the Three Man will have to be delayed as well. After all, it’s pretty difficult to run a three person scramble when you are limited to twosomes on the course.
It’s a great feeling to stop by area courses and see people enjoying the out-of-doors and specifically the game of golf. For non-golfers who might worry about social distancing, I want to qualm your fears. I’ve been watching the first tee at Adams Springs for the past eight days, and trust me, no one seems to be gathering anywhere near the middle of the fairway.
