GOLF : State Amateur Qualifying Event Set

The road to Pebble Beach for the 79th California Amateur Championship will go through Los Serranos Country Club in Chino--as it has for the past 20 years--for golfers from Southern California.

A record 517 low-handicap golfers filed entries for the tournament from the southern half of the state, a number that the Southern California Golf Assn. had to pare to 400 to accommodate the two Los Serranos courses where qualifying will be held May 15-16.

On the first day, half the field will play the 7,110-yard, par-74 South Course, and the other 200 will play the 6,200-yard, par-71 North Course.

The fields will be cut to the low 50 and ties for the second round, with the players switching courses. After 36 holes, the low 43 will receive invitations to play June 25 at Cypress Point in the first round of the State Amateur. Actually, there will be 50 from Southern California, but there are seven exemptions. Another 50 from Northern California will complete the field.

Paul Stankowski, the Southern California Amateur champion from Oxnard, heads the list of players who have exemptions. Others are Dave Stockton Jr. of Mentone, runner-up in last year’s State Amateur; Mark Johnson of Barstow, the SCGA Mid-Amateur champion, and the others who reached the quarterfinals last year--Jack Spradlin Jr. of San Diego, Pat Duncan of Rancho Santa Fe and Craig Steinberg of Van Nuys. Another spot will be held open for the NCAA champion, in case he is from Southern California, as was Phil Mickelson of La Jolla last year.

Bob Pastore, the SCGA senior champion from San Diego, also had an exemption but declined.

The defending champion is Casey Boyns of Pacific Grove, a caddy at Pebble Beach, who defeated Stockton, a USC student and son of former two-time PGA champion Dave Stockton, 3 and 1.

Players will find a number of minor changes on the North Course at Los Serranos, which is owned by former tennis star Jack Kramer. One they won’t find, however, is that No. 9 has been changed from a 217-yard par-3 to a 345-yard par-4.

Officials of the SCGA ruled Friday that qualifying rounds would be played with the old hole, reasoning that the change would confuse players who had practiced under the par-3, par-71 format.

The State Amateur will conclude on June 29 with a 36-hole championship final at Pebble Beach.

The American Golf Club, a 50,000-member organization based in Santa Monica and has the largest membership of any golf club in the country, is planning its own national scrambles team championship.

Qualifying tournaments will be held at the more than 100 courses operated by American Golf Corp. Included are Long Beach’s five municipal courses, Brookside in Pasadena, Camarillo Springs, Fullerton, Oceanside, Rancho San Joaquin in Irvine, Vista Valencia and Los Angeles County courses at La Mirada, Los Verdes and Mountain Meadows.

Once the four-player teams are established, 13 regional tournaments will be held around the country. Southern Californians will play at Brookside, Oceanside or El Dorado in Long Beach. The finals will be Nov. 17-19 at the Painted Desert course in Las Vegas. Two teams will qualify from each regional tournament.

Golf Notes

Chris Tidland, the Valencia High golfer who won the L.A. City junior title, plans to enroll at Oklahoma State. . . . Clyde Thompson of Yorba Linda and Bob Lowe of Anaheim won the SoCal Left-Handed Golfers Assn. lefty-righty tournament at Green River. . . . The Bob Hope USO charity event is set for May 14 at the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station course.