USC Eye-Opener Renders Steinberg an Avid Amateur

In his first season on the USC golf team, Craig Steinberg thought he might have what it takes to become a professional. His thoughts wandered to the PGA Tour. But when he started competing against the cream of the collegiate golf crop, the daydreaming stopped.

He saw Bobby Clampett tearing up every tournament. He saw Hal Sutton sinking one impossible putt after another. He saw Fred Couples booming drives into the next zip code. He saw Gary Hallberg and Bob Tway and Joey Sindelar and others who pull down the big money on the Tour slicing up golf course after golf course.

And after seeing all of this, Steinberg made a logical career decision. The eyes had it: He became an optometrist.

“Those guys killed me,” the Van Nuys resident said. “I watched them and I said to myself, ‘These guys are good. Really good.’ And I didn’t want to pursue a pro career and wind up being one of those guys who is 180th on the money list every year and having to qualify for every tournament and barely making enough money to eat. I knew that would be a tough way to live.”

So Steinberg set his sights on optometry school; he has a practice in Studio City, asking client after client to read the bottom line on the eye chart.

But Steinberg, 30, spends considerable time on another type of practice, that of pounding golf balls toward the horizon. His dream of playing on the pro tour may have vanished, but this eye doctor is still a pupil of the game of golf.

Steinberg was one of 491 amateur golfers in Southern California to enter the local qualifying tournament earlier this month for the 77th California Amateur Championship, and he earned one of 200 berths in the championship field at Monterey Peninsula.

Last Wednesday at Pebble Beach, Steinberg shot a 72 and moved into the first round of match play. He defeated Loy Martin of Palo Alto to advance to the quarterfinals but lost to Bob Marten of Alamo.

It was Steinberg’s ninth appearance in the California Amateur, and even though he turned in a strong performance, it wasn’t his best effort. He reached the semifinals in 1982.

And while he turned away eight years ago from the chance of making money by playing golf, Steinberg now dreams of picking up the ultimate reward of amateur golf. He said he hopes that his showing at Pebble Beach and his play in upcoming tournaments will catch the attention of the committee that picks the United States’ Walker Cup team.

“That’s my goal now,” he said. “I want to make the Walker Cup and then be invited to play in The Masters. I’m closer to those two things now than ever.”

While a quarterfinal showing in the California Amateur has probably put Steinberg on a list of many potential Walker Cup members, his play in the Pacific Coast Amateur during the first week of August, and then in the U. S. Amateur Championships at the end of August, will determine whether the Walker Cup selection committee calls his name.

“I want them to consider me,” he said. “That’s all I want . . . to have played well enough to earn consideration by the Cup Committee.”

Even if he does not get selected, Steinberg knows he will keep playing.

“I think with all golfers it’s an ego thing,” he said. “We all want to see just how good we can get, just how much we can do. Whether you’ve got a 36 handicap or you’re a scratch golfer, you always walk off the course thinking you could have done better. You shoot a 69 and you think, ‘If I would have made that little putt on the fourth hole I’d have a 68.

“That’s what keeps all golfers going.”

Another attraction to the game is that unlike most sports, golf can be played for a lifetime. And Steinberg said he plays for the day that he can walk the fairways with his son, Ryan, now 15 months old. Ryan made his first tour of an 18-hole golf course at the age of 3 months, his infant seat strapped into his father’s golf cart during a round at the Braemar Country Club in Tarzana.

“He hit his first golf ball last week during the Cal Amateur,” Steinberg said. “I gave him a ball and a club in the hotel and he was whacking it all over the place. Golf is such a great game and it’s something I’d like him to pursue . . . only if he wants to.

“But with me around, I don’t see how he can avoid being exposed to it.”