Golf : After 25 Years, Junior Program Is Changing

Lou Bastanchury and his golfing daughter, Jane Booth, are stepping down after 25 years as administrators of the Southern California Junior Golf Assn. and turning the organization over to the Southern California PGA.

The junior program, one of the most successful in the country, involves up to 1,200 golfers playing in more than 75 tournaments.

“We know the PGA affiliation will enhance the junior tournament calendar, allowing for better communication and exposure for the junior events,” said Booth, herself a product of the program when the late Bill Bryant was its director.

Tommy Jacobs, who recently announced that he is leaving his post May 1 as director of golf at La Costa Country Club after 15 years, will take up new duties as supervisor of construction of the Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe.

Jacobs, a former touring professional, also resigned as tournament director of the MONY Tournament of Champions, which is played at La Costa.

Pete Dye, architect of the Tournament Players Club at Ponte Vedra, Fla., and the PGA West stadium course at La Quinta, will design the Farms’ 18 holes. The course, which will be private, is scheduled to open in late summer of 1987. Membership will be by invitation only.

Jacobs will supervise construction, participate in the club management and supervise a marketing program in the development of the club and its surrounding properties.

The Tommy Jacobs Golf School will continue to be conducted at La Costa, however.

Golf Notes

There was a $20,000 prize for the first player who made a hole in one on the 12th hole during the Long Beach PPG/Grand Prix tournament at Recreation Park. No one won it, but race driver Johnny Parsons came close. His shot hit the flagstick and fell about eight inches from the cup. . . . Billy Casper’s 12th annual clinic and charity tournament will be held June 9 at Industry Hills. . . . .The Golden State tour will play Monday at River Ridge GC in Oxnard and April 21 at Calabasas CC.

One of the best-kept secrets around Palm Springs is that the Desert Falls CC course is open to the public. When the housing project, around which the course was built, went bankrupt, the course stayed open. Former touring pro Jimmy Clark of Huntington Beach is managing the facility. The SoCal PGA four-ball championship will be played there April 28-30.

The women’s mini tours are headed this way. Group Fore, which started in California a decade ago, will open its West Coast tour April 20-23 at Carlton Oaks CC in Santee, followed by the Rio Women’s Classic April 28-May 1 at Green River GC in Corona. The Futures, a Florida-based tour, will be at River Ridge GC for a $14,000 tournament April 27-30.

This year’s 16th annual L.A. police-celebrity tournament will be May 17 at Rancho Park with George Peppard as host. . . . Carmel Mountain Ranch, located near Rancho Bernardo in San Diego County, will open for public play April 21. . . . Bernice Stoneman and Cheryl Henderson won Industry Hills’ partners’ best ball tourney. . . . Actor Bob Donner led the Hollywood Hackers over the Camarillo Springs course with a 75. The Hackers will play April 27 at Spring Valley Lake, near Victorville. . . . Fore magazine, official publication of the SoCal Golf Assn., received first honors in the National Golf Foundation’s Harry C. Eckhoff competition for amateur association magazines.

Happy birthday to Mac O’Grady. The free-spirited pro will be 35 April 26. . . . The Rams Booster Club charity fund-raiser in memory of the late Kirk Collins is set for Monday at Yorba Linda CC. Proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society and the Orange County Trauma Society. . . . Coming April 28 are two charity events: Nolan Cromwell’s celebrity tournament at Los Coyotes CC for the benefit of cystic fibrosis research, and the Heart Foundation tourney at Bear Creek CC, near Lake Elsinore.

The PGA West doesn’t want to play favorites so it has hired Jack Nicklaus to design its next two courses. Arnold Palmer’s is due to open in the fall. . . . Ken Killian, who operates from both Los Angeles and Palatine, Ill., is the new president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. . . . Frances Hirsh and Dr. E. O. Lindquist won club championships at Tamarisk CC. . . . April 23 is the deadline for entering the U.S. Open, which will be played June 12-15 at Shinnecock Hills GC in Southampton, N.Y.