Golf / Tracy Dodds : Local Pros Take Another Shot at the Amateurs

So what if there is no big money on the line? So what if it’s kind of a social day at the Annandale Golf Club in Pasadena? The local pros are getting just a mite touchy about the way the amateurs keep beating them every year.

Ten carefully selected members of the Southern California PGA will go into the sixth annual Jack Wall Cup Matches at 11 a.m. next Saturday well aware that the first five tournaments have been won by the amateurs.

It’s starting to get embarrassing.

Ron O’Connor, executive secretary of the Southern California PGA, kept trying to be light about it, but he had some definite opinions on which pros should be matched against which amateurs this time around.

The 10 amateurs who will be competing were picked by the Southern California Golf Assn. And O’Connor noted: “Prior to the involvement of the associations, it was less organized in terms of the amateurs. They would usually have one or two or three who were local college players not from the Southern California area.”

Nine of the 10 pros were selected according to a point system. The at-large berth this year is going to former Trojan Mark Pfeil, a tour player. O’Connor says that’s “not for fire-power, just to add a little interest.”

Not all the match-ups have been determined but, for example, Dave Barber, the pro section champion, will play Dave Sheff, the amateur champion, and Chuck Green, the pro seniors champion, will be matched against John Richardson, the amateur seniors champion.

Other pros scheduled to play are Tom Barber, the sectional championship runner-up; Scott Mahlberg, the stroke play champion; Tom Sargent, the stroke play runner-up; Gerald Wisz, sectional championship semifinalist; Jim Woodward, the Southern California Open and State Open champion; Don Brown and Jim Petralia.

On the amateur team will be Sandy Galbraith, the Mid-Amateur champion; Jim Myers, the champion of club champions; Pat Duncan, Buzz Greene, Bryan Gorman, Jim Lundstrom, John Pate and Mitch Voges.

Golf Notes

Alton Duhon has won his fourth Griffith Park Men’s Golf Club championship, 12 years after winning his first in 1974. He beat Tim Lawlor, 1 up, on the 18th hole of their championship match. . . . For the second year in a row, the SoCal PGA led the nation in money raised for National Golf Day. The section raised $52,328 for National Golf Foundation charities. Second was North Texas, with $19,500. George Thomsen, head professional at Candlewood Country Club, is national chairman. Candlewood led the SoCal section clubs with $7,100. Forty-two SoCal PGA pros and their clubs participated. . . . The seventh annual invitational Dean Martin-American Lung Assn. Golf Tournament will be held Monday at Riviera Country Club. For more information, call (213) 935-5864.

The fourth annual WeTip Celebrity tournament will be held Nov. 19, at Rio Hondo Country Club in Downey. KABC-TV sportscaster Ted Dawson will be the host. The tournament benefits WeTip/Eyewitness Anonymous, a nonprofit organization that works against crime. Among the celebrities participating will be Angel Bobby Grich, high jumper Dwight Stones, former Ram Deacon Jones, and Laker President Bill Sharman. For more information call (213) 924-2063.

The eighth annual Michelob-Steve Garvey Celebrity Invitational will be held Feb. 9 at the Braemar Country Club in Tarzana to benefit the Oral Education Center of Southern California, an organization that serves deaf and hearing impaired children. A donation of $275 entitles each golfer to a cart, range balls, lunch on the course, dinner, prizes and matching golf shirt and slacks. Each team will have a celebrity captain. The tournament has been sold out every year. For more information, call (213) 838-2720 or (213) 839-6935. . . . Ray Roberts beat Fred Brown in the championship flight of the Los Serranos Lakes Men’s Golf Club tournament. . . . The 11th annual Harvey and Chris Korman Invitational Celebrity Golf Tournament will be held at the Canyon Hotel in Palm Springs Nov. 21-23 to benefit the Samuel Carpenter III and Thomas C. Webster Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Marianne Frostig Center of Educational Therapy, a school, research and training center for learning disabled children. For more information call (818) 791-1255.

U.S. Open champion Jane Geddes and runner-up Sally Little will be among the eight professional women golfers challenging the men in the Spalding Invitational Pro-Am Dec. 31-Jan. 3 over three Monterey Peninsula courses. Juli Inkster, Patty Sheehan, Mary Beth Zimmerman, Jan Stephenson, Val Skinner and Beth Daniel also will compete in the only pro-am that matches men and women in head-to-head competition for equal prize money. Although women do use shorter tees on some holes, a woman has never won the tournament in the nine years that they have been included. The top prize this year will be $50,000, up from $40,000. Greg Norman, Craig Stadler, Johnny Miller, Al Geiberger and defending champion Tim Norris also will compete on the Pebble Beach, Carmel Valley Golf and Country Club and Carmel Valley Ranch courses. The Carmel Valley Ranch course is replacing Del Monte this year. Proceeds from the Spalding go to the Monterey Kiwanis Club for its youth-oriented charity programs.

The inaugural Ellsworth Vines Invitational will be held Monday through Sunday at Palm Valley, Avondale, Ironwood, Tamarisk, La Quinta and PGA West (Palmer and Stadium) courses. Entry fee is $300 and the field will be limited to 64 players per flight, age 25 or over. For more information, call (619) 564-1262. . . . The $100,000 Wilson-PGA Club Professional Tournament being held this weekend is the first pro tournament to be played on the Arnold Palmer Course at PGA West in the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains. The champions of the PGA’s 41 geographical sections are competing, along with eight members of the American PGA Cup Match Team that defeated Great Britain-Ireland in September. Representing Southern California in the tournament is Dave Barber of Bakersfield. . . . The Avondale Golf Club in Palm Desert, which recently changed its name from del Safari, will hold its annual professional-member-guest invitational Nov. 28-30.