Ojai Valley Inn Lands Seniors’ Tournament Spurned by Local Clubs
The GTE West Senior Golf Classic, blown off the Wood Ranch Country Club in Simi Valley by 2 years of ego-flattening winds, has landed at the Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club in Ventura County and will be played Dec. 1-3, tournament officials have announced.
The new site of the event is 30 miles east of Santa Barbara and just a mile from Lake Casitas.
The course--built in the 1920s--was designed by Billy Bell and George C. Thomas Jr., the same architects who designed Riviera Country Club, Bel-Air Country Club and Los Angeles Country Club.
The tournament, which has attracted the top seniors players, including Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Chi Chi Rodriguez and Gary Player, was played at Wood Ranch the past 2 years. But the powerful winds that often rake the Simi Valley layout caused many players to complain about the course.
Tournament officials offered the event to 2 other Valley-area country clubs--North Ranch in Thousand Oaks and Lakeside in North Hollywood--but the boards of directors at those clubs rejected the tournament.
The new winter tournament is expected to have a field of 72 senior golfers.
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