Bad Luck Plagues Voges; Stankowski Holds Lead Heading Into Last Round : Golf: Simi Valley man tumbles to seven off the pace in SCGA Amateur Championship after a third-round 75.

Not everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Mitch Voges on Saturday in the third round of the Southern California Golf Assn. Amateur Championship.

He did not, for example, fall on a porcupine. Nor did a single one of the Wilshire Country Club’s hundreds of towering palm trees topple onto his head. And not once in 18 holes of golf did a stranger walk up to him and poke him in the eye with a dart.

Just about everything else, however, did go wrong.

Voges, 40, of Simi Valley, entered the round just a stroke off the lead in a strong bid to win the SCGA Amateur title for the first time. But he ended the day with a 3-over-par 75 and tumbled seven strokes behind the leader, Paul Stankowski of Oxnard. In all likelihood, the day spelled the end of his chances of winning the prestigious event.

“I’m history,” he said. “I’m too many strokes behind now. I knocked myself out of the game today.”

Not accurate. Voges actually played well, striking the ball just as well as he had on Friday when he posted rounds of 72 and 68. The difference on Saturday was a woman. Lady Luck.

“Some days are like this,” Voges said. “It’s the agony of the game. Golf is not a fair game. It never has been. But I won’t complain and I know I can’t fight it.”

Voges’ ill-fated day began with a marvelous pitching-wedge shot from about 100 feet on the first hole. The ball landed just 10 feet from the flag.

But then, churning with backspin, the ball retreated more than 30 feet, leaving Voges not with a decent birdie attempt but with a long and difficult putt just to set up a short putt for par.

“I should have known what I was in for right then,” Voges said. “That ball sucked back so fast I couldn’t believe it. It was unbelievable. I knew then it might be one of those days. I was right.”

His misfortunes on the greens were highlighted by four birdie putt attempts that caught the lips of the cups and spun out. None of them were rolling very fast, but all circled the hole almost in slow motion and stayed out. It was, for Voges, agonizing.

“Four putts lipped out today, and I haven’t lipped out that many in months,” he said. “I had all of them going at the right speed, dying at the hole. I didn’t smash any of them. But out they came. There is just no explanation for that.”

And when the gods of the greens weren’t jumping up to bite Voges on the nose, the gods of the fairways were.

“It started on the fourth hole,” he said. “I ripped a big tee shot and only had about 100 yards to the green. But the ball trickled off the fairway and stopped two feet into the rough. In six inches of grass. It was just impossible.”

Voges’ woeful round left him at 215, seven strokes behind Stankowski--who won the tournament last year--six shots behind second-round leader Pat Duncan of Rancho Santa Fe and four strokes behind Bob Clark of Santa Ana, who matched Stankowski for the low round of the day with a 68.

Charlie Wi of Thousand Oaks, the 18-year-old who won the California Amateur Championship last month, came back with a round of 69 after opening rounds of 73 and 76, but he was out of contention, 10 strokes behind Stankowski, whom he defeated in the semifinals of the state championship.

Chris Zambri of Thousand Oaks shot a 73 and was at 217, nine shots off the lead. Chris Etue and Don Baker of Canoga Park were tied at 220 after shooting 72s.

But none was more disappointed than Voges.

“I was playing so well, I just couldn’t believe I could come out here today and shoot a 75,” he said. “I really expected to play well and score well today. I’m really surprised at what happened to me. And how it happened.”

His fall began on the sixth hole when he missed a three-foot putt for par and settled for a bogey. He bogeyed the ninth hole after pulling his tee shot into some trees.

And on No. 10, the slide began in earnest. His tee shot on the par-3 hole came up short of the green, and his ball was lodged against a small clump of grass. His chip shot caught the grass and fell quickly, just halfway to the green. And then came one of his four lipped-out putts, and he had himself a fat double-bogey.

His drive on No. 11 strayed just inches off the fairway and into a heavy patch of clover. He recovered, but lipped out putt No. 2, this one a slow, agonizing one that seemed to hang on the edge of the cup forever before spinning out. He took a bogey 5.

On the 13th hole, he was the only player in the group that included Stankowski, Duncan and Clark to hit the par-3 green off the tee, stopping his ball just 13 feet from the flag, and had a big chance to pick up a stroke on them.

But, as Voges watched in disbelief, Clark first holed out a 50-foot blast from a sand trap for a birdie and then Duncan rammed in a 45-foot putt from off the green for his birdie. And suddenly, Voges had to make his putt just to keep from losing yet another stroke.

He didn’t. The putt caught the left lip of the cup and, maddeningly, spun out.

“It was a long day in the park,” Voges said. “A long day with no fun. What a struggle. I felt like I was out there for 20 years today. When things go bad you draw the funny lies and the putts don’t fall.”

But Voges, a veteran golfer and a winner of dozens of tournaments in his long golfing career, will be back today. In fact, the more he talked about his dismal round, the more his outlook improved.

“I am as capable as anyone out here of getting hot and running the table,” he said. “I need four or five or six birdies in a row and I could climb back into this thing. I’ll have to shoot a 63 to win, but you know what? It can be done.”