The Western Intercollegiate is one of the longest-running college golf tournaments in existence. Starting in 1947, the event has been played each year at Pasatiempo Golf Club, an Alister Mackenzie masterpiece which lies in the Coast Range hills above Santa Cruz, California. Hosted by San José State University, this year’s edition is sponsored by Top Golf entertainment centers and features, for the first time, television coverage by Golf Channel.
 |
| Pasatiempo Golf Club, Santa Cruz, is the site of the 73rd Western Intercollegiate golf tournament, hosted by the San José State University men’s golf team. |
The 2019 lineup of collegiate golf teams in the event are:
· University of California
· University of California-Irvine
· Colorado State University
· University of Hawaii
· University of Oregon
· Pepperdine University
· San Diego State University
· San Jose State University
· University of Southern California
· Stanford University
· University of Texas-El Paso
· University of Washington
The combination of Pasatiempo Golf Club, the renowned Alister Mackenzie golf course in the hills above Santa Cruz, California, and a big collegiate invitational golf tournament is a win-win. Pasatiempo, a 1929 Mackenzie masterpiece that was restored by Tom Doak between the mid-1990s and 2007, is a stiff test even at a short-by-modern-standards 6,500 yards. Cost-related changes that were made over the years included filling in dozens of bunkers, and worst of all, the planting of hundreds of trees in the 1960s, a move that fundamentally altered the course’s structure. In the wake of the Doak restoration, which was based on a collection of photos of the original course which were discovered by former club historian Bob Beck, the course again plays as Dr. Mackenzie designed it,
The Western Intercollegiate has been played at Pasatiempo since 1947, through the changes and the restoration, producing a list of champions filled with familiar names: Ken Venturi was a two-time champion as a San José State golfer, in 1951 and 1953; Ken Miller won the event in 1968 while at BYU; other familiar names on the champions list include Peter Jacobsen (Oregon), Mark O’Meara (Long Beach State), Bobby Clampett (BYU), San José State’s Arron Oberholser, and Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers and Maverick McNealy.
Pasatiempo is the type of course that rewards course knowledge as well as great play, and the Spartans’ weekly practice rounds on the course showed their worth as the host team led the first two days of the tournament. Two SJSU players, Sean Yu and Kevin Velo, were among a group of four tied for second in the individual rankings after 36 holes, behind Stanford’s Isaiah Salinda.
Salinda, who leads at eight under par, had these comments about Tuesday’s second round: “I definitely thought it was a little tougher than yesterday. The pins, the wind was up. It was a little firmer too, even with the rain yesterday. I had to work for everything today, whereas yesterday everything came a little easier. I kind of made it hard on myself but hung in there on the back nine.”
San José State’s Kevin Velo reinforced the importance of familiarity with the layout: “It really helps to know where to hit the golf ball off the tee. You have to play the golf holes from green to tee kind of. You have to look where the pin is to make sure you are in the right spots, and I think that really helped me out today. I was able to put it in the right side of the fairway and get my approach shots decently close and get a lot of looks.”
Final round coverage of the 2019 Western Intercollegiate will air Wednesday on Golf Channel from 4 to 7 PM.
No comments:
Post a Comment