The predicted and expected rain never happened this year. Both days dawned bright and clear for the 70 entrants for this year’s course championships. As always the course was closed to the public for this event. All players received a T- shirt designed by Chet Morse showcasing a picture of Woman’s Am World champion Vanessa Van Dyken. This years entry included salads from Amplified Ale Works and lots of pizza. The course layout was changed for each of the 3 rounds with the second round being a very difficult, never to be seen by the public at large, layout. This round proved to be the undoing of many aspirants. In the first round Chris Hanna had the hot round shooting a -13 only to fall victim to the tough layout and shoot a +7 to fall out of the lead. Micah Dorius our 14 time course champion shot a -11 in the first round followed by a -2 on the tough layout and a remarkable -16 in the final third round to cruise to an 11 stroke victory in the final 9 over second place finisher Jason Perdue at -22, Oscar Garcia -21, and Max Nichols at -19.
In the women’s division the expected shoot out between 5 time Women’s World Champion Juliana Korver and current Am World champion Vanessa Van Dyken was thrown a curve when local Allie Robles shot a fantastic even par first round to tie Juliana and take a 3 stroke lead on Vanessa. In the long layout second round Vanessa was able to gain some strokes on Allie and by tourney’s end finished 5 strokes behind Juliana in a marvelously played Women’s division.
There were 2 players in the Men’s Am division that managed to shoot under par in each of the 3 rounds. Patrick Paramore shot -2,-1,-7 to finish second to this year’s Am winner Carlos Caballero would shot an impressive -17 total for the event.
It’s apparent our course is becoming more difficult as the trees and shrubs mature. The overall mean entrant scores were the highest in history this year. This may not be the longest course but has proved it can still be technically challenging to the masses. Till next year…
Z ya