Golf : Leonard Family Fell Just One Stroke Short

A quick glance at the pairing sheets for the 1989 El Caballero Country Club golf championship would have led you to believe it was an All-Leonard event. The only Leonards seemingly not entered were Sugar Ray and Nimoy.

The Leonard entries this year included David and his oldest son, Bill. And David’s youngest son, Rob. And David’s middle son, Jeff.

Jeff, 29, was the three-time defending tournament champion and the recent winner of the bronze medal in golf at the Maccabiah Games in Israel. He almost made it four in a row at El Caballero on Sunday, finishing in a tie with Brian Kaufman and John Cummings at 227 after the regulation 54 holes.

But this time, Jeff lost the championship as he and Cummings bogeyed the third hole of sudden death and Kaufman parred it to take the title. Rob was next among the Leonards at 239 followed by David (240) and Bill (245). It was the first time all four family members had played in the tournament. Last year, however, Rob was the runner-up in the event behind Jeff.

“It’s all for one and one for all in this family,” said David, who owns an accounting firm in Encino and works alongside son Jeff. “We’ve competed together in so many sports for so long that we’ve all learned how to win and we’ve also learned how to lose. It’s nice to win, and it’s OK to lose. It takes a lot of maturity to lose graciously, and all of my boys have reached that level.”

To qualify for the tournament, the four had to post handicaps of nine or lower. Jeff led the way with a handicap of one.

“After winning three in a row, I came into the tournament this year with a lot of pressure,” Jeff said. “I was expected to win again. But the competition was really unusual this year. With nine holes to play there were seven or eight players who still had a chance to win it. The other years it seemed only two or three of us had a chance at winning with nine holes left.”

In the Leonard family, there is not a lot of teasing among the brothers. In some families you could expect the brothers to surround the final green and wrap their hands around their throats in the universal symbol for choking as Jeff went for the title.

Not this crew.

“When I lost in the playoff I felt bad and my brothers and father felt bad, too,” Jeff said. “When I lost they said it felt like they lost, too. They wanted it for the family, but we couldn’t get it.”

Jeff’s disappointment, however, is tempered every time he walks into his home and sees the bronze medal from the Maccabiah Games. The three weeks in July were, he said, the highlight of his life.

“The motto for the Games was ‘Three weeks to experience and a lifetime to remember,’ and that’s exactly what it was,” he said.

In addition to his medal for finishing third among more than 80 entrants in the Games in Tel Aviv, Jeff helped the United States win the gold medal in team competition.

Superpowers: Tim Powers of West Hills tied for first place in the 16-17 age bracket at the Landmark Invitational junior tournament in Palm Springs on Tuesday. Powers shot a par-72, matching the score of Oscar Alvarez of Rancho Mirage.

In the girls’ 12-14 age group, Melinda Donnelly of Thousand Oaks finished first with a score of 87.

Eight Is Enough: Ted Lehmann of Simi Valley turned in the best showing among Valley-area players in last week’s $100,000 Long Beach Open, finishing eight strokes behind winner John Mason of El Cajon and earning $980.

Amateur Champion: In last week’s Southern California Amateur Championship at the Glendora Country Club, Paul Stankowski of Oxnard took the title with a 72-hole score of 9-under-par 279.

David Olsen of Sherman Oaks finished at even-par 288. Others included Dave Fernandez of Woodland Hills (296), Buz Greene of Thousand Oaks and Al DiMato of Simi Valley (300).