Robert Gautney: Veteran players Seymour, Richardson win KC 4-Ball title
| Wednesday, Jul 01 2009 09:57 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Jul 01 2009 09:57 PM
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Have you seen those Big Dogs shirts that have the caption "Old Guys Rule!"? Perhaps the remainder of the field in the 20th Kern County 4-Ball Championships this past weekend at Haggerty-North Kern should pitch-in to buy Jim Seymour and Kent Richardson one each.
Seymour and Richardson, a pair of "elder statesmen" in the local amateur golf scene, beat the young, the middle aged and everyone in between as they shot rounds of 64 and 66 for a 14-under 130 total in the better-ball format. Their total was good for a one-shot win over a pair of teams -- Nick Vallejo/Ron Kilmer and Scott LaBare/Kevin Anderson. Both teams shot 64 in the opening round and 67 in the final round.
Another shot back at 132 was the team of Bill Frankhouser Jr., and Stephen Hale, with Jeff Campbell/Bhavik Patel fifth at 133.
The 130 winning total was the first time since 2001 that the winning team hadn't broken 130. In fact, the last two winners had shot the second and third best totals ever in the tournament, 125 and 124. Perhaps the course was playing tough along with the sweltering 108 degree temperature the players had to deal with.
Rounding out the top 10 were: D.J. Fernando/Alex Prunes in (6th, 134), Scott Anderson/Mark Pavletich and Mark Charmley/Joe Arambula, equal 7th at 136; Chase Goodvin/Bryce Keene (a pair of high schoolers) (ninth, 137) and the teams of Marty Trahan/Jeff Sande and Suraj Patel/Chris McCracken equal 10th at 139.
The top 10 teams received points toward the 2009 Sports Authority/Michelob Ultra Player of Year Series and with the nine points that LaBare earned for equal second, he now leads the points standings with 23.
LaBare is followed by Scott Anderson who has 22, Brian Edick (the Arvin City winner from Valencia) is third with 20 while Eric Steinbeck is fourth with 16 and Kilmer vaulted from eighth to fifth with 15 points.
Rounding out the current top 10 are Alex Marina and Goodvin tied for sixth with 12 points, while Seymour and Richardson are now equal eighth with their 10 points followed by Vallejo and Kevin Anderson with nine points each.
The next event on the schedule will be the Bakersfield City Amateur at Sundale CC, July 25-26. Players can start to sign up for that event by contacting the Sundale CC pro shop at 831-5224. More information on the entry guidelines will be in next week's column.
While most of the attention is focused on the championship flight, teams are competing in the net portion as well. The winning tandem was Matt Hammons and Daniel Russell who shot net rounds of 60 and 61 for a 23-under 121 total, but they needed every shot!
Right behind them were Joe Finn and Jeff Biggar who carded 60 and 62. Finn and Biggar actually won this event back in 1997 with a gross 131 total. In third place were the tandem of Troy Goodvin and Steinbeck at 125.
The closest-to-the-hole winners were Ryan Jones on Saturday and Hale on Sunday. A total of 28 teams participated, down a bit from usual, but as NK director of golf Jim Phillips said, "We didn't have a big field, but there were a lot of quality teams."
FERNANDEZ WINS TWICE
Stockdale High's Pete Fernandez, Jr. won two tournaments within the last week.
First, Fernandez shot a bogey-free 6-under 66 at Recreation Park Golf Course in Long Beach on June 24 to win the Boys 16-18 age flight in the Crosby Memorial Junior Golf Championship.
Fernandez, who once lived in Downey before moving to Bakersfield, beat Long Beach native Jake Hutton who will be a senior at Wilson High, who fired a 69.
Fernandez then shot a 3-under 69 on Monday at San Luis Rey Downs to win the qualifying for the So Cal PGA Junior Tour Boys 16-18 State Championships. Fernandez will now compete Aug.10-12 at Oak Valley in Beaumont, the site of the So Cal PGA of America, for the State Junior Championship.
The runner-up to Fernandez was Andrew Levitt from Laguna Niguel, who shot a 74. Four players qualified to advance to the state finals.
13 TEAMS BEAT PROS AT BV/NK MEN'S CLUB
The Buena Vista/North Kern men's club held its monthly tournament at NK on June 20 and 13 teams beat the professional team of Jim Phillips and Justin Pitts who shot a 6-under 66 gross.
The teams had to beat the pros total with their net scores and the teams of S.Anderson/M.Pavletich and B.Dewing/A.Dewing both shot 61s to lead the way.
Closest-to-the-pin winners were J.Freeman, C.Smith, T.Strange and B.Bivens.
With the completion of half of the club events for the year, Craig Dowd leads the Player of the Year points standings with 26.5, followed by Jay Erwin at 24.5 and Joe Finn at 21.5.
The next club event is July 19 at BV and will be an individual stroke play. Call 398-9720 or 399-0347 to sign-up.
CHIP SHOTS
* Manav Shah, Gunner Kirschenmann and MJ Morin all tried to qualify for the U.S. Junior Amateur this past week. Kirschenmann came the closest with a T-41 finish out of 73 players at Goose Creek in Mira Loma, while Morin was 59th and Shah was 61st at Mission Viejo CC.
* John Wilson and Mark Johnson earned spots into the U.S. Senior Open by finishing 1-2 at the Sectional Qualifying at Crystalaire CC in Llano. Wilson, a pro from Indian Wells, shot a 65 while Johnson, a multi-SCGA winner while an amateur and winner on the PGA Senior Tour a few years back, shot a 69.
Tee to Green appears weekly at Bakersfield.com/sports. You can reach Gautney at: rgautney@bak.rr.com.
