De La Rosa to contend in Costa Mesa City Championship
It was around 4 p.m. on Friday, the day before the Costa Mesa City Championship, and Sean Collins was getting things ready for the golf tournament. In about 14 hours, the first group would be teeing off at Costa Mesa Country Club.
The two-day, 36-hole tournament, which is in its 44th year, usually falls on Collins’ birthday. This year, he turned 50 on Wednesday, giving him a chance to celebrate his special day with his family.
Since then, Collins has been devoting his time with his golf family before the tournament, which also goes by the Will Jordan Classic. Collins is usually the first person to arrive every morning at the tournament, and he will see two members of his Orange Coast College men’s golf team — Marcus De La Rosa and Myles Valentine — early on Saturday.
De La Rosa and Valentine are part of the second group to tee off in the championship flight at 6:10 a.m. De La Rosa, who won the Orange Empire Conference individual title this past season as a freshman, is a legitimate contender among the field of 114 golfers. A handful of former Costa Mesa City champions — Austin Amaya (2015), Jeff Coburn (2010), a UC Irvine alumnus, Joey Benedetti (2006), Mike Carpenter (2001), a Newport Beach resident, and Greg Sato (1999) — are also competing.
“It looks like a good field again,” Collins said. “We have a lot of college kids, a lot of returning guys, and a lot of guys that are local and know the course pretty well.
“The best part of our tournament [is that] a lot of people request to play with other people, maybe it’s longtime friends that they haven’t seen maybe even for a year. That’s what makes our tournament different from other tournaments that are out there. You have an opportunity to play with your friends, to shoot the [breeze].”
Shooting the breeze is one thing, shooting 12-under-par 58 on the first day on the Mesa Linda course is another for Collins.
“Coach does a good job setting up the place because he doesn’t want any golfer to break his course record,” De La Rosa said of Collins, who carded a 12-under-par 58 in 2001. “You got to respect him for making the course hard.”
Another person De La Rosa admires is Valentine. Valentine said he missed all of last season with the Pirates because he fractured his right shoulder in a car accident.
It took Valentine six months to get back on the course. Then on Monday, Valentine said a drunk driver T-boned his truck in Laguna Niguel, where he lives.
“I reinjured my shoulder again,” Valentine said. “It’s going to be difficult to play, but I’m going to try my hardest. I’ve been icing [my shoulder] and taping it. I don’t know how long I’ll last.”
De La Rosa said he hopes Valentine can gut it out through 36 holes. Last year’s winner, Amaya, won the tournament with a two-day total of 134, four strokes ahead of the nearest competitor.
A year ago in the tournament, Valentine shot 144 (73-71) and De La Rosa 153 (76-77). De La Rosa said his familiarity with the two courses, Mesa Linda and Los Lagos, bodes well for him this time around.
“We played our home matches there last season,” said De La Rosa, who helped the Pirates claim the Orange Empire Conference title and reach the California Community College Athletic Assn. State Championship. “I’m looking forward to the tournament and playing with Myles. We play together almost on a daily basis. It’s always fun to play against each other once in a while. We’re playing for bragging rights.”
