16th hole at Olympic’s Lake Course will be “Lake Merced Monster” for 2012 Open

The USGA has made a number of the usual “U.S. Open setup” course changes to the Olympic Club’s Lake Course in preparation for the 112th United States Open Golf Tournament – lengthening holes, narrowing and re-routing fairways, growing out the rough, and shaving runoff areas around some greens. Of all those changes, however, there is one which has excited the imaginations of spectators, and raised the ire of players, more than any other: the stretching of the par-5 16th hole to 670 yards by the addition of a new tee box.

Players evaluate their second shots on the long par-5 16th hole at the Olympic Club’s Lake Course during a practice round for the 2012 U.S. Open photo credit: Gary K. McCormick (2012)

A lot of golf fans I have talked to are fed up with the pros automatically assuming that a par-5 is pretty much an automatic birdie – or even an eagle opportunity given a really great second shot – and obviously, the USGA feels the same way. USGA Director Mike Davis and his course-setup gurus wanted a true three-shot par-5 at the Olympic Club for the 2012 Open, and unable to dial back the ball or club design, they found the opportunity they were looking for in the Lake Course’s 16th hole.

A long, left-curving par-5 at the bottom of the course, near the shore of Lake Merced, the 16th is the first of two consecutive par-5s on Olympic’s Lake Course – the only par-5s on the course. At 609 yards from the blacks it was already a pretty testing hole before the changes, and then the USGA cranked up the difficulty by adding another tee box, 60 yards farther back, between the 10th and 15th greens and the 11th tee. For the volunteer course marshals, and spectators trying to follow playing groups through this part of the course, this area will be a traffic nightmare; for the players it could be a bad dream of a different sort.

Reaction to the changes from the players has been mixed, ranging from Tiger Woods: “If you hit two good shots into 16 you're going to have a wedge in there, [and] you should make birdie.” to a somewhat testy Bubba Watson: “I don't know why it needs to be 670 with the deepest rough of the golf course.”

Steve Stricker, when asked how he felt about having to wait until 16 for the first par 5 on the course, and then having two par-5s in a row, said,“Is that a par-5? (Laughter) [Q. Par six?] Yeah, it’s a par six.” Phil Mickelson had this reaction to 16: “… you play 15 holes of really tough, tough golf. And you finally get your first par-5 and it’s the toughest hole on the course.”

In Tuesday and Wednesday’s practice rounds, most players were trying various combinations of driver and 3-wood, back tee and front tee, and taking a long hard look at where each shot ended up. With the fairway narrowed toward the left in the landing area, a shot to the rough on the outside of the curve meant a hard choice between a 7-iron or a hybrid; players were seen trying both. The position of the green, and especially the placement of the opening to the green, a narrow sward between a pair of deep-ish bunkers, dictates an approach from the right, but the curve and width of the fairway makes that position difficult to achieve.

With the back tee slated to be used in at least two rounds, players will be faced with a hard choice: take 3-wood for better assurance of a position in the fairway and a clean lie – but farther back, behind the curve and with a poor angle to the green; or, take driver and try for a great angle for the approach, but with the possibility of ending up in a sticky, ankle-deep lie in the rye and bluegrass combo that comprises the rough at Olympic.

Olympic’s 18th hole, with its amphitheater setting and Spanish-style club house backdrop (reminiscent of the finishing hole at another classic California course, Riviera Country Club) may be the glamour hole, and the long par-3 13th, with its shaved and severely sloping runoff areas, may be the little monster this week, but the big, bad 16th hole will be the real “Monster of Lake Merced” at the 2012 Open.

[UPDATE: After the first round of regulation play, the 16th hole was rated #2, playing to a stroke average of 5.536.]

Tiger Woods poised to claim another legend’s record with a win in 2012 Open

Much has been made in the sports media in recent years of Tiger Woods’ pursuit of the records of Jack Nicklaus, especially Nicklaus’ 18 professional major victories. Tigers’ win last week at Jack’s own tournament, the Memorial, which is played on Jack’s course, Muirfield Village, in Dublin, Ohio, equaled Jack’s record of 73 PGA Tour wins, moving Tiger into a tie for 2nd place in that category, behind Sam Snead’s mark of 82. Little has been made, however, of the possibility of Tiger overtaking one of the achievements of the most revered American golfer of all time, Robert T. “Bobby” Jones, Jr.


The United States Golf Association (USGA), golf’s American ruling body, oversees the rules and regulations governing the game (in concert with the Royal and Ancient, the United Kingdom’s golf ruling body), and also administers seventeen annual championships, ranging from the Junior Amateur (for golfers under the age of 18) to the highest test, the United States Open. The records of who won, and when, who was the oldest or youngest winner, as well as many other shades of accomplishment, are compiled in the USGA’s Media Guide. An annually-published compendium of USGA records, which runs to 496 pages this year, the Media Guide is the last word in who did what, and when, in all USGA championship events over the last 112 years.


Buried deep within the USGA Media Guide is a record which Tiger Woods currently shares with Bobby Jones – “Most Championships Won, All Events” (which coincides with “Most Men’s Championships Won”). Jones, a lifelong amateur player, holds the ultimate record in golf with victories in the U.S. and British Amateur Championships, and the U.S. and British Open Championships in a single calendar year, a feat which he accomplished in 1930. Referred to as the “Grand Slam”, it was the crowning achievement of Jones’ career – after the final event of the “Slam”, the U.S. Amateur Championship, at Merion Cricket Club in Haverford, PA, Jones retired from competitive golf – at age 28. Over 14 years of competition leading up to the “Grand Slam”, Jones notched up wins in no fewer than nine USGA championships: four U. S. Open victories (in which he defeated the leading professional players of the day) – in 1923, 1926, 1929 & 1930, and five U.S. Amateur wins – 1924, 1925, 1927, 1928, and 1930, making him the most prolific USGA champion of all – until Tiger Woods came along.


Tiger’s USGA championship record is a nicely symmetric combination of three Junior Amateur titles, with victories in 1991, 1992, and 1993; three U.S. Amateur titles, with another three consecutive wins, in 1994, 1995, and 1996; and three U.S. Open titles – 2000, 2002, and 2008. As Tiger’s game rounds back into form after a tumultuous 3-1/2 years of injuries, swing changes, and personal issues, he is being discussed as a serious contender for the 2012 U.S. Open title. If Woods successfully navigates the tight fairways and small, contoured greens of the Lake Course at San Francisco’s Olympic Club next week for a win, he will be one more step on the road to topping Jack Nicklaus’ professional major victories record, but he will also take sole possession of the record he now shares with the greatest American golfer of all time – Bobby Jones.

From ”The Longest Day in Golf” to “The Toughest Test in Golf”: Three Stories

Take 130 golfers, spread them over two tough, championship-caliber golf courses, mix in rain, and a chill wind off the Pacific – and then tell them that they have to play the golf of their lives for 36 holes, all in one day, for a chance at seven spots in the field at the biggest event in U.S. golf: that was U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying at Lake Merced Golf Club and Harding Park Golf Course on Monday, June 4th.

Billed as “The Longest Day in Golf”, U.S. Open sectional qualifying tournaments were held at eleven sites all across the United States on June 4th, 2012, but the qualifying tournament that took place here in the Bay Area had a special cachet that the other sites didn’t – the golfers at the Bay Area Sectional would be playing literally within sight of their goal: San Francisco’s Olympic Club. The 2012 United States Open Golf Tournament will be played on the Olympic Club’s Lake Course, which is located just across Lake Merced from Harding Park Golf Course and just a few blocks along Daly City streets from Lake Merced Golf Club.

There were any number of potential stories in the offing as the first players teed off (in unseasonably rainy & windy conditions) at seven o’clock that morning: local amateurs taking a shot at a spot in the field at “The Toughest Test in Golf”; journeyman pros seeking validation for years of “almost there” contention by making it to the big show; young, up-and-coming pros trying to take their competitive careers to the next level, and junior golfers getting their first taste of the pressure of high-level competition. But three stories rose above the rest as the sun was setting into the Pacific Ocean that evening, just west of the three golf courses that are central to the tale. The leading characters in those stories are James Hahn, a young pro on the Nationwide Tour; Michael Allen, a journeyman pro who found his greatest success late in life; and Sebastian Crampton, a high-school-aged golfer with a long, fluid swing and the cool demeanor of a seasoned competitor.

The day before “The Longest Day in Golf”, James Hahn, a San Bruno resident and former Cal golfer, was 2,500 miles away from Lake Merced Golf Club, his home course and one of the two courses where the drama of San Francisco-area sectional qualifying was going to be played out. The week before sectional qualifying he was playing a Nationwide Tour event, the Rex Hospital Open, in Raleigh, NC. Hahn, 30, tried the life of a professional golfer when he came out of college, playing the mini-tours with little success. He actually gave up the game for a year, taking a job at an advertising agency in Alameda, before deciding to take another crack at it. He plays on the Nationwide Tour, professional golf’s equivalent of Triple-A baseball, and had been having a pretty good year leading into the week before U.S. Open qualifying: two Top 10 finishes, five of eight cuts made, and nearly $60,000 in on-course earnings.

Despite the fact that he knew he was going to be across the country from the Bay Area just days before the qualifying tournament, Hahn selected his home course as his qualifying site when he submitted his entry for the U.S. Open. Even though he’d made five of eight cuts to that point in the season, he figured that there was no guarantee that he’d make this one, and was set to fly home over the weekend and get in some practice rounds before the Monday qualifier.

As things turned out, Hahn was flying high, literally and figuratively, Sunday night after the conclusion of play in Raleigh – he had carded four solid rounds in the 60s at the par-71 Wakefield Plantation course, survived a 2-man playoff, and chalked up his first professional victory. The win, and accompanying $99,000 paycheck, boosted Hahn to #5 in the Nationwide Tour standings – well within the magical Top 25 group that will graduate to the PGA Tour next season. Moving up the ladder to the main tour is every professional golfer’s dream, a life-changing step that they all strive to take.

Before the reality of his win, and all it entailed, had time to sink in, Hahn boarded a 7:45 PM flight out of Raleigh, changed planes in Atlanta, GA (de rigeur for air travel to and from the Southeast, it seems…), and arrived at San Francisco International airport at 12:30 AM Monday – for a 7:00 AM tee time. 2,500 air miles and a scant 3 hours of sleep after his first professional win, Hahn teed off at Lake Merced Golf Club and set in motion another potentially life-changing series of events.

Carding a bogey-free round of 66 in wet, blustery conditions, albeit on a course he knows as well as any other he has ever played, Hahn followed up his sterling performance in the morning round with a two-bogey round of 70 at nearby Harding Park. His combined score of 136, was the best – by one stroke – carded by any of the 130 players who competed here for a spot in the Open.

Just a few hours after achieving one major professional milestone, Hahn had notched up another, under the best of circumstances: playing on his home course, literally within sight of the world-famous venue where one of the top four (and arguably one of the top two…) golf tournaments in the world would be held just a week and a half later, he had secured a spot in the field at the 2012 United States Open at the Olympic Club.

Michael Allen is another golfer with local ties who emerged from a wet and wild day of golf with a spot in the field at the 2012 U.S. Open. Allen, 53, shares James Hahn’s affinity for the Bay Area golf courses where the 2012 Open and it’s local prelude would take place, but his roots in the Bay Area, and his connection to the courses involved, go deeper.

Allen is a native of San Mateo who grew up playing the Bay Area’s great golf venues, including the Olympic Club, where has been a member of since he was 14 years old. His professional golf career has encompassed two of the four previous times in which the Olympic Club has hosted the U.S. Open – 1987 and 1998. He didn’t make it into the field on either of those occasions, though he came tantalizingly close in 1998, when he was first alternate.

Allen’s varied professional career has seen him moving back and forth between the PGA Tour, the European Tour and the Nationwide Tour over the years, toting up some high finishes but never a win. A surprise invitation to the 2009 Senior PGA Championship, based on career earnings, just months after turning 50 and thus becoming eligible for the “Senior Tour”, set the stage for Allen’s first professional victory. Allen defeated Larry Mize at Beachwood, Ohio’s Canterbury Golf Club to become the 2009 Senior PGA champion. He has won twice more on the Champions Tour since then, both victories coming in April 2012 – in fact, in consecutive weeks.

With six Top 5 finishes out of nine events played on the Champions Tour this season, including the two wins in April, it seemed that Allen’s game was peaking at the right time for the 2012 U.S. Open. Indeed, the third time was the charm for Allen, as he carded a bogey-free round of 67 in a rainy early-morning round at Lake Merced Golf Club, and a two-bogey 70 at Harding Park in drier but still windy conditions in the afternoon round, for a combined score of 137. It was a kind of fairytale scenario: 25 years after his first attempt, in his last shot at playing in the United States Open at the storied Olympic Club*, his home course since his teenage years, Michael Allen served up two sterling rounds of golf, in weather that was dismal even by foggy San Francisco standards, and nailed it – earning himself a chance to play for the national title on his home course.

At the other end of the spectrum from journeyman pro Michael Allen lies 16-year-old Sebastian Crampton, of Pacific Grove, a talented junior golfer who first picked up the game at age 12. Crampton, who just completed his sophomore year at Robert Louis Stevenson High School in Pebble Beach, emerged from a local qualifier at Pasatiempo Golf Club, in Santa Cruz, last month as 1st alternate. His score of 71 on the Alister Mackenzie-designed course left him one stroke away from advancing to sectional qualifying, and tied with three other players for the last two spots.

Failing to advance from the four-for-two playoff at Pasatiempo, Crampton was not expecting to be playing in the sectional qualifying tournament on June 4th, and he and his parents didn’t make plans to drive up to the Bay Area from their home on the Monterey Peninsula. Then, on Sunday evening before the sectional qualifier, Crampton received word that his friend William Buchanan, of Los Altos, who had outscored Crampton by one stroke at Pasatiempo, had injured an elbow playing basketball – Sebastian was in.

Late notice, early tee time, two-hour drive and all, Crampton carded a one-bogey 66 at Harding Park to emerge as an early co-leader, then came to Lake Merced Golf Club – a course he had never played before – to try and complete his journey to the U. S. Open. Teeing off on #10, the tall, lanky youngster played very cleanly from tee to green in the first half of his round. He birdied the par-5 14th hole, only to give the shot back on the par-3 15th when his par putt slid by the hole, narrowly missing.

Crampton birdied the next of the course’s three par-5s, the 503-yard 6th, but a failed up-and-down from a bunkered approach shot at the par-4 7th hole resulted in a double-bogey six that set him back. After a couple of near misses on the closing holes he came in with a final score of 139, one shot out of a potential playoff for the final qualifying spot.

Even with the near-misses and bunker mishaps in the inward nine of his second round of the day, the young man from the posh private high school in Pebble Beach never seemed impatient or upset. He kept his cool and planned his next shot as he waited on his fellow competitors, taking the game one shot at a time – just as the “swing doctors” and mental-game coaches tell us we all should. Though he ended the day as second alternate – a long shot for a spot in the Open – his combination of a smooth but deceptively powerful swing, and a cool, calm disposition under the pressure of competition bodes well for a long and successful career in golf.

Three area golfers, three different stories: James Hahn came back to golf after quitting for a year – and collected a win and a ticket to the United States Open in the space of less than a week; Michael Allen tried and failed twice in the span of eleven years to win a spot in the field of a U.S. Open when it was being contested on his home course, then finally made it a quarter-century after his first attempt; Sebastian Crampton, a youngster with the demeanor of a seasoned professional, but who has only been playing the game for four years, came tantalizingly close to a spot in the big show in his first try. Crampton may well end up being the biggest story of the three, eventually; if all goes well he may be hitting his full stride as a seasoned competitor when the Open returns to Northern California again in 2019 – at his home course: Pebble Beach.


* [The tournament rotates among a variety of top courses all across the United States, and is not scheduled to return to the Olympic Club until  – possibly – the 2022 to 2025 time frame.]

Memorable Memorial as Woods overtakes Nicklaus record

Tiger Woods is still pursuing Jack Nicklaus’s record of eighteen major tournament victories, but at the 2012 Memorial Tournament – Jack’s tournament on Jack’s golf course, Muirfield Village – he stepped up onto the same line on the all-time-wins leaderboard as Jack.

Nicklaus has long stood alone on the second-place step of the all-time-wins victory stand with 73 wins, nine behind Sam Snead’s record of 82, but now he has company. In the final round of the tournament, Tiger Woods came from four strokes back of the 54-hole leader, Spencer Levin, of Sacramento, CA, to post his fifth win at the Memorial Tournament, and his seventy-third professional tournament victory, equaling Nicklaus’ mark.

This was the second time this year that Spencer Levin has failed to capitalize on a third-round lead; in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, in February, Levin blew up in the last round, throwing away a six-stroke lead to eventual victor Kyle Stanley. His final-round fall from grace in the 2012 Memorial was not as dramatic as his collapse in Phoenix, but it was just as untimely, and has reinforced Levin’s reputation as a “twitchy” player who can’t close the deal on Sunday.

Levin opened strong with a tournament-leading 5-under 67 on Thursday, fell back to tenth place on the leaderboard on Friday with an even-par 72, then rebounded with a 69 on Saturday to retake the lead. Levin opened the final round with a clean, though unspectacular, 1-under opening nine – a birdie on the first hole followed by eight pars. His putter, which had been behaving more like a magic wand than a golf club all week, started to let him down on the back nine in the final round, but it might have had to have been a magic wand to get him out of the trouble he was getting himself into from tee to green over the closing holes of the tournament.

A poor – but lucky – shot out of a fairway bunker on the tenth hole set up his first bogey of the round when a poor club choice resulted in a blast into the steep face of the deep bunker. Ricocheting off the face, the ball traveled only 45 yards, but it could as easily have plugged and put him an even more difficult situation. Waylaid by more trips into the bunkers – on the 11th, 12th, 13th, 16th, and 17th holes – Levin’s endgame just was not up to the task of holding off a hard-charging Tiger Woods. He only put up one more birdie in the round, on the par-4 14th hole, against the bogey on 10, two more bogies on 12 and 17, and a double-bogey on 13.

A similar, though less dramatic, roller-coaster ride was experienced by South African Rory Sabbatini. His scores of 69-69-71-72 saw him in the third-, eleventh-, and second-place spots on the leaderboard through Saturday. It doesn’t look like a bad run of scores, but the final round 72 wasn’t enough to hold off Woods. A couple of wayward tee shots and a missed putt or two were all it took to rack up the three bogeys that spelled the difference between victory and his eventual T-2 finish.

Wearing his customary red-over-black Sunday colors, Woods came out of the gate strong in the final round, posting one bogey – on the 8th hole – against four birdies for an opening 33. Another bogey, on the 10th hole, backed him up a shot, but he gathered himself up with a run of four straight pars before putting his foot down and racing to the finish with three birdies over the last four holes.

Woods had appeared to be under the weather early in the tournament, affected by allergies or a cold, and is reported to have been running a fever of 102 degrees during Saturday’s round. All illness and infirmity was behind him on Sunday, however, and a combination of clean tee shots, spectacular iron play, and a zeroed-in putter spelled doom for his stumbling competitors.

The highlight shot of Woods’ back nine, and the tournament, was a Mickelson-esque flop shot to the 16th green. After his tee shot to the 201-yard par-3 skipped off the green, carrying past and coming to rest in the lush rough behind the putting surface, Woods lofted a spectacular, one-in-a-thousand flop shot out of the rough that landed softly on the green, rolled down toward the flagstick and dropped into the hole for a birdie two. It was a shot that could easily have gone very badly wrong in less-skilled hands – hit fat and landed short, the shot would have left a tricky downhill putt to a flagstick hard by the water; hit thin, the ball would have skittered across the putting surface and into the water fronting the green, with double-bogey the likely result. Nicklaus himself praised the shot, both from the broadcast booth and later, when he greeted Tiger as he came off of the 18th green, saying that it was the best shot he’d ever seen on this course.

The holed-out flop shot was the most dramatic of Woods’ iron shots on the back nine, but consistent, deadly accurate iron play was the key to his final-round comeback. Tight approach shots from good fairway positions set up the chances for birdies – his play on the 18th hole was a sterling example.

Standing 174 yards out after a 265-yard tee shot, Woods’ caddie, Joe La Cava, told his boss, “One more great iron, buddy”, before stepping away with the bag. Woods delivered, flying a 176-yard 8-iron shot to 8 feet, 10 inches above the hole in a demonstration of the kind of precision shot-making that we used to take for granted from him. He sank the putt, a far-from-easy downhill slider with just a bit of left-hand break in the middle, and all but wrapped up the trophy while his only viable pursuer, Sabbatini, was still on the course.

At that point a Sabbatini comeback was the longest of longshots, as the South African would have had to hole out his second shot to tie Woods’ 281 final score and force a playoff. Sabbatini swung with everything he had off the tee, trying to clear the bunker complex guarding the inside corner of the slight dogleg right fairway. He came up a scant two yards short of the required 315-yard carry, his ball landing in the rough on the upslope on the far side of the last bunker, just short of the fairway.

With 117 yards to the hole, Sabbatini’s second shot flew high and on line, but skipped off the putting surface, giving Woods the victory. A too-short chip and five-and-a-half foot putt later, Sabbatini’s round was over. He ended the day tied for second with Argentina’s Andres Romero, who had moved up from T-6 to T-2 on the strength of a final round 67.

The consistency of Woods’ tee shots, iron play, and putting this weekend at the Memorial bode well for his chances at the U.S. Open, which is only two weeks away. Returning to San Francisco’s Olympic Club for the first time since 1997, the 2012 Open will be played on Olympic’s tight, demanding Lake Course, where the rewards awaiting accurate shotmaking are more than matched by the penalties visited on poor shots.

Two Bay Area Junior Girl Golfers Are Hopeful of U.S. Women’s Open Success

One Bay Area junior girl golfer has qualified for the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament, and another will be on her way to Southern California early next week, determined to do the same.

Hannah O’Sullivan , 14, of Cupertino, placed second in the May 21st, 2012 qualifying tournament on the Ocean Course at Half Moon Bay Golf Links. O’Sullivan posted a 36-hole total of 143, 1 under par, 1 stroke behind medalist Gigi Stoll, of Beaverton, Oregon. Stoll, O’Sullivan and Altadena, CA golfer Mo Martin were the top three finishers at the Half Moon Bay qualifying tournament, and have earned a spot in the field at the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open, which will be played July 5 – 8, 2012 at Blackwolf Run, Kohler Wisconsin.

The other Bay Area junior girl who is taking a shot at a place in the field at the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open is Casie Cathrea, of Livermore. Cathrea, 16, is traveling to Industry Hills Golf Club, City of Industry, CA to tee it up on Tuesday, May 29th, against a field deep in professional, collegiate and post-collegiate amateur talent. According to Cathrea, she elected to travel to the Industry Hills qualifier rather than compete at Half Moon Bay because her father liked the course better – and for the challenge. Casie feels that making the cut out of the stronger field she expects to encounter there would make a statement. In her words, “Usually qualifiers don’t make the cut. I plan to.”


Casie Cathrea, of Livermore, CA, will compete for a spot in the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament in a qualifying tournament Tuesday, May 29th, at Industry Hills Golf Club in City of Industry, CA.
Photo credit: Getty Images
 
As that statement indicates, Casie is a confident young lady, with the record to back up her confidence. Her CV is comprised of an impressive list of on-course accomplishments – including 150 tournament victories since she started playing competitive golf at age 6. In 2011 she partnered with Hall of Fame golfer Ben Crenshaw, a 2-time Masters champion and the 1999 Ryder Cup Team captain, to win the Pro-Jr competition at the The First Tee Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links with a combined score of 22-under par. Cathrea has committed to play her college golf at Oklahoma State University.

Other notable contestants who will be in the field next Tuesday at Industry Hills Golf Club include SJSU freshman golfer Jordanne Barr, of Bakersfield; Salinas native Sydney Burlison, currently playing her collegiate golf at Stanford; Meghan Hardin, of Blue Jay, CA, a contestant in the Golf Channel competition/reality show Big Break Atlantis; teen actress Kathryn Newton, of Coral Gables, FL, who has appeared in the films Gary Unmarried and Bad Teacher; and an impressive lineup from the 2011 NCAA Division 1 Women’s Championship-winning UCLA Women’s golf team which includes 2011 US Women’s Amateur Public Links champion Brianna Do, and 2010 and 2012 U.S. Curtis Cup Team member Tiffany Lua.

Local favorites, PGA pros, to play in June 4 sectional qualifier at Lake Merced & Harding Park

A 130-man field comprised of hopeful amateur and professional players from all across the western United States, and as far afield as Canada, England, and Australia, will assemble at Lake Merced Golf Club and TPC Harding Park on June 4th in hopes of qualifying for the 2012 U.S. Open, which is coming to the Olympic Club, in San Francisco, June 14 to 17.


The short but challenging par-4 18th hole at the Olympic Club may be the site of closing round drama at the 2012 U.S. Open Golf tournament. (Photo credits: John Mummert/USGA)

With 77 players of the 156-man field for the Open already selected based on fifteen exemption categories ranging from status as a former U.S. Open winner to a position within the top 60 in the Official World Golf Rankings, the number of spots available to players who are working their way through the ranks in local and sectional qualifying tournaments is shrinking. A further six players have made the field from the first of two international sectional qualifiers, held May 21st at Lake Hamamatsu Country Club in Shizuoka, Japan. After the second international qualifier, to be held May 28th at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey, England, is in the books, the remaining spots will be filled from the eleven sectional qualifiers which will be held in the United States on June 4th. Depending upon the number of players advanced from the Walton Heath qualifier, there could be as few as 6 players per tournament advancing from the U.S. qualifying tourneys.

The Bay Area qualifying tournament was originally slated to be held at Lake Merced Golf Club only, but the private course in Daly City quickly became over-subscribed. The popularity of the venue with U.S. Open hopefuls is understandable, and not just for the quality and challenge of the course. Originally designed by Willie Lock, a transplanted Scot with many ties to early-20th Century Bay Area golf, the greens complexes and bunkering were reworked in 1929 by Dr. Alister Mackenzie, the renowned course architect who is responsible for such world-famous courses as Royal Melbourne, site of the 2011 Presidents Cup matches, Cypress Point, the dramatic seaside course on the Monterey Peninsula, and the famed Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters tournament. After a re-routing which was required by the construction of nearby Interstate 280 in the 1960s, the last revisions to the course, made in 1996, were designed by Rees Jones, famous for his preparation of numerous U.S. Open venues.

The pedigree and quality of the Lake Merced Golf Club’s course aside, possibly the biggest advantage the venue has in the eyes of potential players is its location – virtually next door to the Olympic Club’s Lake Course, the site of the 2012 U.S. Open. The chance to experience the weather conditions of the Peninsula location a week in advance of the Open would be a boon to players, which is the reason that so many selected Lake Merced as their sectional qualifying venue. Luckily for the USGA’s tournament schedulers, another venue, quite nearby, was available to deal with the overflow – the City of San Francisco’s Harding Park Municipal Golf Course, known as TPC Harding Park since the venue’s association, in 2010, with the PGA Tour’s TPC Network of championship-caliber courses.

Sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open consists of two 18-hole rounds played in one day. The field of 130 players, split 66 and 64, will each play one round each at Lake Merced Golf Club and Harding Park. Notable players who will be attempting to make these two courses their springboard into the field at he U.S. Open this year include pros Paul Goydos, Alex Cejka, Michael Allen, and Bob May.

Goydos, 47, a respected journeyman pro who is known as “Mr. Sunshine” for his dry wit, has one Nationwide Tour victory (in 1992, when it was known as the Ben Hogan Tour) and two PGA Tour wins to his credit. Goydos has been away from the Tour since March 13, when he had surgery to remove a bone spur in his left wrist. The June 4th sectional qualifier is his return to competitive golf following the surgery.

Cejka, 41, a German player currently living in Las Vegas, Nevada, is playing on a major medical extension on the PGA Tour. Cejka has failed to finish high enough in his first five PGA Tour events to recoup his exemption – advancement into the U.S. Open, and a good finish in the championship, would be a big boost back into the upper echelons of professional golf circles for him.

Michael Allen, 53, of San Mateo, is a well-known Bay Area golfer. A late starter who had limited success on the PGA Tour, Allen has come into his own on the Champions Tour, winning three times since he started playing the 50+ circuit, including the 2009 Senior PGA Championship – his first 50+ victory. Allen is familiar with both of the courses he will play in the sectional tournament, and carded a round of 61 at Harding Park during the 2010 Schwab Cup Championship.

Bob May, 43, another journeyman pro seeking a boost up the rankings with an appearance in the U.S. Open, has battled back problems for most of his career. May is best known for his narrow loss to Tiger Woods in the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club, in Kentucky.

Some of the local favorites who are setting their sights on a spot in the 2012 U.S. Open field by way of the June 4th sectional qualifier include Thomas Petersson, of Stockton, and Domingo Jojoja, of San Francisco – both are local pros who represent Lake Merced Golf Club. Other local pros in the field are John Poucher, of San Francisco, John Ellis and Mark Hubbard, of San Jose, Andrew Hoffer, of Santa Rosa, Paul Brehaut and Michael Jensen of Los Altos, Thomas Ryan, of Danville, and Joe Dolby of Mountain View. Local amateurs in the tournament include Andrew Hoffer, of Santa Rosa, Rick Reinsberg, of Lafayette, Hank McCusker, of Mendocino, Jay Myers of San Jose, and Matt Cohn, of San Francisco.

More Bay Area Golfers Advance In U. S. Open Qualifying

Thomas Petersson, 28, a native of Stockholm, Sweden, who now lives in Stockton, and Domingo Jojola, 24, a native of New Mexico and former USF golf standout, are two players who are going to be very comfortable on the first tee at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City when play starts in U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying tournament there on June 4th. Petersson, who came to California to attend college at University of the Pacific, and Jojola, who now makes San Francisco his home, both represent Lake Merced Golf Club, so they will be playing a crucial tournament on their home course.

Petersson and Jojola are two of the six area golfers who advanced to sectional qualifying through the local qualifying tournament yesterday at Mayacama Golf Club in Santa Rosa. The scores that the six qualifiers put up on the hilly 6,761-yard Nicklaus-designed course, ranging from 70 to 67, gave notice that they are all players to be reckoned with.

  

Petersson, the medalist, posted a 5-under score of 67 with a round that included 5 birdies in the first 10 holes, with one bogey in that stretch, at the sixth hole. He stumbled a bit with back-to-back bogeys at 13 and 14, but recovered in high style with an eagle at 15, thanks to a 30-foot putt, and clinched the top spot with a two-putt birdie at 18.

Jojola tied for second with Hank McCusker, an amateur from Mendocino; both carded 4-under 68s. McCusker opened his round with a brilliant opening nine score of 30. Starting from the 10th tee, he carded a birdie on 12 and had a run of four straight birdies on 14 through 17, but two bogies against one birdie on his closing nine brought him back by a stroke. Jojola stumbled out of the blocks with a bogey on the 1st hole, but righted the ship with a birdie on 6, forging ahead with a run of three more birdies at 8, 9, and 10. After four straight pars at holes 11 through 14 he finished birdie, bogey, par, birdie to close out his 4-under 68.

Rounding out the top six were another amateur, Jeff Wilson, of Fairfield, a former touring pro, Michael Jensen, a pro from Los Altos, and Timothy Bogue, of Windsor, another professional player. Wilson and Jensen carded 69s, while Bogue was one stroke back, offsetting a lone bogey with three birdies for a 2-under round of 70.
Lurking at the heels of the top 6, and ready to step in for a shot at a U. S. Open berth should any of the qualifiers not be able to play, are the two alternates, Scott de Borba, of Elk Grove, and Bobby Poole, of Burlingame, who each carded 1-under 71s. de Borba is the first alternate, a position he won in a playoff over Poole after they tied in regulation play.

There are stories behind just about everyone who steps up to the tee box at a U.S. Open qualifier. Hank McCusker, the amateur from Mendocino, has been down this road before – he also qualified at Mayacama for the Sectional tournament at Lake Merced Golf Club in 2008; he has been club champion at his home club, Little River Golf Club, four of the past five years. Wilson, who runs an auto dealership in Fairfield, has played in four U. S. Opens, the first as a teen, in 1982. He was the 2000 U.S. Amateur champion, and in the 2010 U.S. Amateur fired a 62 in the first round, aided by eagles on the two closing holes. Jensen, a third-year touring pro who plays out of the Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park, played his college golf at Berkeley, and was co-captain of the team in 2008-2009. Bogue, the only Sonoma County golfer in the top 6 (which explains his large gallery), is a longshoreman at the Port of Oakland.

The six qualifiers face a long day of tough competition June 4th at Lake Merced Golf Club, because while local qualifiers are 18-hole tournaments, sectional tournaments consist of two rounds of 18 holes – 36 holes of competitive golf against some of the best players in the western United States.

Lake Merced Golf Club is one of eleven sectional qualifying locations across the United States, of which only three are west of the Mississippi. The other western locations are Emerald Valley Golf Club, in Creswell, Oregon, and Lakeside Country Club, Houston, Texas. There are two international sectional qualifiers – one in Japan for players on the Japan, Asia, and Australasian tours, and one in England for European Tour players. Some 750 players, spread across the thirteen sectional qualifying sites, will be vying for the 75 – 80 spots in the starting roster for the U. S. Open that are not already filled by the pros and elite amateurs who are exempted into the tournament.