Golf / Shav Glick : ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ Come Out for Annual Mini-Tour Queen Mary Open

The Masters of the mini-tour circuit, the Queen Mary Open, will spotlight the PGA Tour players of tomorrow when it plays for the 18th year this week on the Lakewood and Skylinks municipal courses in Long Beach.

What began in 1972 as a $15,000 tournament for fun promoted by Doug Ives, a Long Beach sportswriter, and sponsored by the Long Beach Junior Chamber of Commerce, has grown to a $110,000-event with $20,000 going to the winning professional and a sizable sum to charity.

Ives did so well as a promoter that he founded the Spalding Golden State Players Tour and quit the newspaper business to become the West Coast mini-tour tycoon. Last year’s Queen Mary Open donated $20,000 for the Exchange Club’s prevention-of-child-abuse program and the same charity will be the recipient this year.

Mike Miles of Huntington Beach, the 1987 winner, is the only member of the PGA Tour among the 302 entries--270 pros and 32 amateurs--who will play split rounds Thursday and Friday at the two courses before the field is cut for weekend play at Lakewood only.

Most of the players are mini-tour regulars trying to get their games in shape before bidding for tour player cards. Forty-four tour players are veterans of the Queen Mary, among them former U.S. Open champion Scott Simpson, Masters winner Craig Stadler, PGA winner Bob Tway and Tournament of Champions winner Mac O’Grady.

Stadler and Simpson, in fact, made their pro debuts in the Queen Mary but their performances were not much better than Jack Nicklaus’ when he made the 1962 Los Angeles Open his first professional appearance. Nicklaus collected $33.33. Stadler pocketed $121 and Simpson $125.

Miles and Mark O’Meara, both from Cal State Long Beach, and Fred Couples also played first as pros in the Queen Mary.

It was difficult to keep track of O’Grady. In his first Queen Mary, in 1977, he played as Phil McGleno and won $185. In 1979 he was Phil O’Grady and by 1981 had settled into Mac O’Grady.

Couples came down from Seattle to play in 1980 as an amateur but he filed his entry a day late. Larry Benson, then the pro at El Dorado, suggested that he play as a pro. Couples said he wanted to wait a year, but after tearing up the course in a practice round, Benson talked him into changing his mind and Couples turned pro on the spot.

Benson and Ives later recommended him for the PGA Tour qualifying school and Couples passed on his first try and in 1981 was the tour’s leading rookie. This year he has earned a place on the United States Ryder Cup team, which will play Team Europe next month.

The Queen Mary usually loses its champion to the tour and last year was no exception. John McComish, the 1988 winner, has graduated to the big time. Other past winners include such tour players as Gary McCord, 1976; Don Pooley, 1978; Mike Sullivan, 1979; Lennie Clements, 1980, and Tony Sills, 1981.

Miles is skipping the International in Castle Rock, Colo., this week to play in his hometown event. He shot a final-round 65 in winning two years ago.

Brad Greer of Huntington Beach and John Mason of San Diego come into the tournament with strong credentials.

Greer, a two-time Southern California Amateur champion, won the Sacramento Open last month and last year shot a record 14-under-par in the Queen Mary, only to lose by a stroke to McComish. Mason recently won the $100,000 Long Beach Open, a 72-hole tournament sponsored by American Golf, which was played on two other municipal courses, El Dorado and Recreation Park.

Other prominent entries include Jeff Wilson of Vallejo, the 1986 winner and this year’s Northern California Open champion; Dennis Paulson of Santa Ana, winner this summer of the Pasadena Open and the Mission Hills tournament; Sean Murphy of Lovington, N.M., the Santa Barbara Open champion, and Mike Blewett of Westlake Village, who won the Southern California Open last June at Rio Bravo.

“It might help the gate a little if we had more players from the tour, but our fans have grown to like watching the stars of tomorrow,” said Ives. “It used to be that we had maybe eight or 10 really solid players who were likely to make it on the tour. Now there are 30 to 50 with chances to get their cards.

“Today, you can interchange the bottom 20 or 30 on the PGA Tour with the top 20 or 30 on our mini-tour and no one would know the difference in the quality.”

In addition to the tournament, the second annual Len Kennett Putting tournament will be held, with a $7,500 purse. Final rounds will be at 5 p.m. Saturday at Lakewood. The winning pro will receive $1,000. Last year’s winner was Bill Lytle of Hemet.

Golf Notes

Chi Chi Rodriguez and the Optimist Club of Downey will be co-hosts of a charity tournament Monday at Hacienda CC in La Habra with proceeds going to junior golf, the Optimists’ Boys Home and other charities. Rodriguez will also conduct a two-hole playing clinic. The tournament will start at 11 a.m. . . . Bruce Devlin, Don Bies, Harold Henning and other senior pros played a look-see round at Sierra LaVerne CC last Monday with thoughts of bringing a senior tour event to the picturesque canyon course. Senior tour dates will be at a premium next season after Lee Trevino turns 50 in December and Jack Nicklaus in January. . . . After winning the SoCal PGA Asst. Professionals’ championship at Rancho California, Bobby Schaeffer of Sandpiper GC has his sights set on the national tournament Sept. 25-29 at Brockton, Mass., and the PGA Tour qualifying school Nov. 7-10 at Rio Bravo CC in Bakersfield. Schaeffer, originally from Temple City, played at UC Santa Barbara. . . . More than 500 exhibitors are expected to display their latest lines of equipment and clothing at the West Coast Golf Show, Aug. 19-20-21 at the Long Beach Convention Center. . . . James Harris and Sidney Williams, former National Football League players; Mudcat Grant and Al Downing, former baseball pitchers, and Bill Wright, 1959 U.S. Public Links champion, will play in the Omega Psi Phi scholarship tournament Aug. 25 at Montebello GC. . . . All the Bob, Bobby, Rob and Robert Joneses will get together for the 11th annual Bobby Jones Open Friday and Saturday at the University of Michigan course. More than 100 R. Jones golfers, including a Roberta Jones, are expected for the annual event commemorating the Grand Slam of Robert Tyre Jones Jr. in 1930. . . . The Vietnam Veterans Aid Foundation has scheduled a tournament for Sept. 18 at Calabasas CC to provide services to Vietnam veterans and their families. Openings are available for $250.