Wi, 18, Seeking Rare Double in SoCal Amateur

The 91st Southern California Golf Assn. Amateur Championship, the oldest continuously played amateur golf tournament in the nation, will get under way this morning with an 80-man field taking on the difficult Wilshire Country Club course.

The 72-hole event starts with two rounds today, with the field being cut to 32 for the final two rounds. The final round will be played Sunday.

Heading the field is Charlie Wi, 18, of Thousand Oaks, who entered the State Amateur Championship on the Monterey Peninsula as an alternate last month and won the title. A victory in the SCGA tournament would make Wi the second golfer to win the State and Southern California amateur events in the same year. Johnny Dawson did it in 1942.

Also entered is defending champion Paul Stankowski of Oxnard. Stankowski, 20, who plays for Texas El Paso, reached the semifinals of the State Amateur before losing to Wi.

Others who received exemptions from qualifying include Craig Steinberg of Van Nuys, the 1988 SCGA Amateur champion; Dave Sheff of San Marino, winner of the event in 1986, and Austin Maki, who graduated from Estancia High School in Orange County in June after winning the CIF championship.