Southern California Amateur Golf Championship Starts Today

Pasadena, never mentioned in the same breath with St. Andrews, will nevertheless be the site of a little golf heritage as the 89th Southern California Golf Assn. Amateur Championship comes to the 82-year-old Annandale Golf Club.

The 72-hole championship, billed as the country’s oldest continuously contested amateur golf championship, will start today as 93 competitors tee off on the par-70, 6,403-yard Annandale course. Only the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur, tournaments that were suspended during the war years, are older than the SCGA Amateur.

Defending champion Greg Starkman will try to become only the second golfer in 37 years to win consecutive titles. The 26-year-old stockbroker from Beverly Hills shot a three-under-par 283 to win by two strokes last year at Braemar Country Club, but he said the tight course at Annandale may make this year’s tournament a better test.

“This is more of a golf course,” said Starkman, who plans to turn professional in October. “Last year, they tricked up the course and made it more a matter of survival. Annandale is a good golf course, I think over-par will win it. If I can stay around par I think I’ll have a good chance.”

Another golfer to watch is 19-year-old Bob May of La Habra. At 15, May was the youngest golfer in the U.S. Amateur, and he was also named 1984-85 PGA Junior Player of the Year.

May has finished his freshman year at Oklahoma State, playing for one of the country’s top collegiate golf teams. The golfers will play 36 holes today, after which the field will be cut to 32. After an 18-hole round Saturday, the final round will begin at 11 a.m. Sunday.