Golf / Scott Howard-Cooper : Bob Rosburg to Play in SoCal PGA Senior Tournament at Riverside

Bob Rosburg, the 1959 PGA champion, will play in the Southern California PGA Senior tournament starting Wednesday at Jurupa Hills CC in Riverside, the richest sectional gathering of its kind in the country. A pro-am will be played Tuesday.

Chuck Green of Oxnard is the defending champion in the 54-hole event. Other former winners include ex-PGA champions Jerry Barber and Paul Runyan and former U.S. Open champion Jack Fleck.

Pros become eligible for senior events when they turn 50, but host pro Joe Robinson was a head professional before some of the other seniors were even born. He is in his 52nd year as a PGA pro and last year was elected to the Southern California PGA Hall of Fame.

Defending British Open champion Greg Norman and a $50,000 increase in purse money will highlight the 15th annual Spalding Invitational Pro-Am on three Monterey Peninsula courses Dec. 31-Jan. 3.

The field for the 72-hole event, with a purse of $250,000, will also include Craig Stadler, Johnny Miller, Al Geiberger and defending champion Tim Norris.

This year, Carmel Valley Ranch has been added to the tournament rotation, joining Pebble Beach and Carmel Valley Golf and Country Club and replacing Del Monte.

For the first time, there will be two qualifying tournaments for professionals, both to be conducted by the Northern California PGA, dates and sites to be announced. One will be for Northern California members only, one will be open, and both will offer three spots in the Spalding.

A team headed by James R. Weeks of the San Clemente GC and another headed by Scott Stubbs of the Hacienda GC in La Habra, both of whom are PGA professionals, is taking part in the third annual National Oldsmobile Scramble tournament at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Weeks is joined by amateurs Sal Frank Russo , James R. Lee, Pete Southworth and William Grange. Stubbs has amateurs Aurel Humaciu, Richard Manzo, Ralph Quevedo and Bert Ruttman.

The Southern California teams are two of 118 fivesomes at the tournament, which began Friday and will end Monday.

The 36 surviving teams after the 54-hole cut will be joined by 36 tour professionals for Monday’s competition. Those failing to make the cut will compete in an 18-hole, $1,000-per-hole putting tournament.

Golf Notes Claude Akins, Ernest Borgnine, Jaime Farr, Charlie Daniels, Foster Brooks, B.J. Thomas and former baseball pitcher Jim Perry are among celebrities scheduled to play in the fourth annual Academy of Country Music Celebrity Tournament Oct. 20 at De Bell GC in Burbank. Glen Campbell and Janie Fricke are co-hosts. Proceeds will go to the T.J. Martell Foundation for cancer and leukemia and to its West Coast division, Neil Bogart Memorial Laboratory. Last year’s tournament raised $13,656 for the research organizations. Entry fee is $150. For more information, call (213) 462-2351. . . .. The Golden State Tour plays at Canyon Crest CC in Riverside Monday and at Sierra LaVerne CC Thursday in a team scrambles. . . . Southern California club professionals will play in the inaugural Guadalajara Pro-Am Oct. 22-26 on the Atlas and San Isidro courses in Mexican city. The 54-hole event will have $10,000 in prize money for the pros and golf club sets, free vacations and other prizes for amateurs.

The Golf Club at Malibu has appointed Colorado architect William Zmistowski to design the clubhouse on a 327-acre parcel of land owned by entertainer Bob Hope overlooking the ocean. Zmistowski, who has previously designed clubhouses at Desert Highlands in Scottsdale, Ariz., and The Country Club in Castle Pines, Colo., will include the Bob Hope Grill, a restaurant decorated with 50 years of Hope’s golf photos and memorabilia. . . . The Bill Bryant Memorial Junior Golf Scholarship Foundation awards dinner will be held Oct. 25 at Industry Hills. . . . Alex J. Morrison, 90, who gained fame as the teacher of many of Hollywood’s golfers in the 1930s, died last week at his home in Riverside. Morrison, who wrote several books on golf instruction, had among his students Hope, Bing Crosby, Howard Hughes and the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VIII. Morrison, who taught up until the time of his death, had been head professional at Catalina Island when it was a favorite of the film colony and in later years at the Fairmount Park course in Riverside.

A fivesome led by Ron Botchan, an NFL official and former San Diego Charger, won an NFL Alumni tournament held by the Greater Los Angeles chapter at Industry Hills. Playing under a Texas scramble format, Botchan’s team won with an aggregate score of 55.90. Botchan’s team qualified for the Super Bowl of Golf, to be held March 28, 1987, at the Superstition Springs Golf Club in Mesa, Ariz. Super Bowl of Golf matches winning teams from 32 NFL Alumni tournaments held nationwide. In July, Ram owner Georgia Frontiere’s fivesome qualified. Others playing in the tournament at Industry Hills were Hall of Famers Joe Perry, Bobby Bell, Dick (Night Train) Lane, Bill Dudley, Ollie Matson and Marion Motley, plus former Ram coach Harland Svare, Danny Villanueva, Jerry Kramer and Ed Spingle. . . . The first annual Pasadena Senior Center pro-am will be held Oct. 24 at Brookside GC. Proceeds from the event will be used to help the center provide recreational and educational programs for the 20,000 senior residents of the Pasadena area. . . . Marion B. Farmer of Los Angeles has been nominated to the United States Golf Assn.’s executive committee for 1987 and will be presented to the USGA membership at the organization’s annual meeting Jan. 31 in Seattle. . . . The 64-page 1986 U.S. Open annual chronicling Raymond Floyd’s two-stroke victory at Shinnecock Hills in New York is available from the USGA. Proceeds of the sale will be used to promote junior golf. This year, income will be used for distribution of the Jack Nicklaus junior golf tape. Thirty-five hundred books are available at $15 a copy plus $2 for shipping and handling. Orders may be placed through the USGA Order Department, Golf House, Far Hills, N.J., 07931.