Dana Hills’ Richardson Has the Sport in His Blood

It’s no wonder Scott Richardson is one of the best young golfers in Southern California. His heritage seems to demand it.

--His grandfather, John, who died in 1988, won the U.S. senior national championship in 1987.

--His father, Kemp, a former USC All-American, played in the San Diego Open as an amateur last month.

And Scott Richardson has kept up well with his elders. Last summer, he finished second in the 13-14 age group at a world junior championship event in San Diego. Last year, he was the No. 1-ranked 14-15 age group golfer in Southern California. And, as a freshman for Dana Hills High School, he finished 11th in last season’s Southern California Golf Assn. tournament, the event that serves as the state high school championship.

Although Richardson, 15, started playing golf at age 5 and was entering tournaments by age 9, he and his family insist that he wasn’t pressured to play the sport. He took a few private lessons, but most of his golf education came from his father, who won the Pacific-8 golf championship in 1967 and 1968, and from his grandfather, who played golf at USC while attending the university on an ice hockey scholarship in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

So if Richardson plays a lot of golf--and his parents asked him to lay off the sport a bit last fall--it’s because he enjoys the game.

Phil Wilburton is in his first full season as golf coach at Dana Hills, which has won or shared eight of the past 10 South Coast League championships.

“He’s an unusual kid in that he loves the game so much. He doesn’t get tired (of playing),” Wilburton said. “He’s the best player (on our team) and it’s not that he’s driven to be the best--he just loves to play the game.”

Richardson said he likes the sport so much that he has given up the other sports of his youth--baseball, soccer and basketball.

“I used to play everything but now I just concentrate on golf,” Richardson said.

“I like individual sports better because if you screw up it’s your fault. In team sports you can have the best game of your life and still get drummed.”

This single-minded pursuit caused his father to ask him to play golf less often last fall.

Said Kemp Richardson: “He made kind of a cute statement, he said, ‘Well, what happens if I play only once a week? Will I lose it?’ I told him not to worry about it.

“I don’t want him to over-do it,” Kemp Richardson said. “He’s got plenty of time.”

Scott Richardson seems fairly certain that his love of the game will carry him through the rest of high school, college and possibly into the professionals. Asked about his chances of becoming a professional golfer, he said: “I think I can . . . It’s going to be a lot of work . . . It’s really hard to say.”