This Course Championship was unexpectedly the largest in our 41 year history. With 30 players entering in the last couple days there were 91 total entrants this year. Out enjoying the perfect weather on a closed course were 37 Open players, 6 women and 48 amateurs. As we’ve done the last couple of years we offered the players three totally different layouts in this event. First round was a normal, medium difficultly layout. Second round is always talked about all year as everything is long. We even play long pads on 8,9 and 17. Several pin placements are only used for this specific event as they are too dangerous for the general public to play on. The third round is all short. Easiest course we can put up. To give you an example of the difference many players shot 15 or more strokes better in the third round than the second. One old seasoned veteran Dan Shorkey improved 23 strokes in his third round over his second round.
Our open winner was no surprise. Seppo Paju staying here in San Diego while visiting his girlfriends parents had just finished his pro tour for this year. He is a 1027 rated player from Finland and finished 6th in the USDGC this year to end his season on very high note. Our locals gave him a good run for his money with perennial second place finisher (14 times) Carlo Pelg only one stroke behind before going into the final nine. Seppo wowed the crowd of approximately 100 spectators when he chose to throw a 100 foot high “staker” over the tops of the trees on hole two and tombstoned into the ground just a few feet short of the pin to the roar of the crowd. Last year’s course champion Carlos Caballero finished a very solid third with this year’s shop representative Clint Calvin rounding out the top four in the final nine. Clint also gave the crowd a thrill by drilling a 100 foot jump putt downhill on hole three for a birdie. Also notable was Carlo Pelg’s deuce on long 6 on the hillside next to Jacaranda Dr. (don’t look for this pin position on the tee sign) and Seppo’s drop in deuce on long 16 (talk about a horken hyser).
The women’s division also had a very close contest with reigning course champion Rianne Hamilton pulling away with a -3 in the third round to win for the second year in a row. Second this year was Allie Robles (I hear she’s due in March) with third going to Kimmy Cottrell.
The Am division was also highly contested with Travis Thomas playing a very steady game to pull out a three stroke victory over the ever smiling Willie Grenis. Willie shot an Am division best -10 in the third round to jump over Quinn Henry and Hunter Mannix who finished third and fourth respectively.
The top finishing Master aged individual was Carlo Pelg and the top finishing Grandmaster aged player was Ed Speakman. Both players received automatic invitations to the upcoming Team Tourney for their excellent play in their age division.
This tourney was sponsored this year by Sean Powell and flydisc.com. Sean gave all the winners a one of a kind custom disc with the tourney artwork He also gave out 8 coupons for designing your own custom disc to the winner of each category, plus the top three open players, the grandmaster winner and the Master winner. This is a very cool website where you upload your own custom artwork and create a one of a kind disc for yourself.
Other sponsors were George Spraklen’s custom wood trophies and Amplified Aleworks provided the players with salad to go with their pizza for lunch.
The full results and payouts are found elsewhere here on the website. CLICK HERE
As usual a big thanks goes out to all my staff for all their hard work as well to my wife, Mac (for the last 30+years), Charlie Grenis, Woody and Greg Olsen.
Till next year,
Z ya…