GOLF : Shotgun Start Triggers McDonald’s Win

Golf clothes are made from many different materials. Polyester was popular. Still is among some golfers.

Cotton is a mainstay. And nylon is used extensively for rain gear. Now, though, perhaps it is time to introduce a new fabric to the world of golf: Kevlar, the high-density material used to make bulletproof vests.

Pat McDonald of Ventura might be interested in the idea.

Seventeen years ago, while McDonald was playing golf with his father at Saticoy Country Club in Ventura, a man with a rifle opened fire on a hillside above them. McDonald and his father dived into a sand trap. Neither was hurt.

“The guy they arrested said he was just shooting at rabbits,” McDonald, 30, recalled. “They must have been flying rabbits.”

Sunday, while playing in the Ventura city championships at Olivas Park Golf Course, McDonald’s round again was interrupted by bullets.

Another golfer from Ventura, Rob Newcomer, told police that as he finished putting on the fifth green he heard a gunshot and a bullet slammed into a tree several feet from him and his partners, nearly severing a branch from the trunk.

“Rob said he screamed and then dove onto the green,” McDonald said. “Then he heard a few more shots go over his head.”

Police were summoned and a Ventura County sheriff’s helicopter aided in a search of the area. No arrests were made and there are no suspects, Ventura police said Wednesday.

“I heard the shots as I was going down the first fairway,” McDonald said. “I didn’t think much about it at the time. I remember the sounds the bullets made 17 years ago when they were going over our heads. They whistled. I didn’t hear that noise on Sunday, so I wasn’t too worried.”

Not fazed by the incident, McDonald overcame a bad start--he bogeyed the first hole--and went on to win the championship by three strokes. He said a one-hour delay as police scoured the shrubs for a gunman relaxed him.

“If it wasn’t for the shooting, I don’t think I would have won,” McDonald said. “I started out playing real bad and was headed for a bad day. But then we had the long break and I got to relax and get in a better frame of mind. It definitely helped me.”

Only a golfer, it seems, would think of gunfire as soothing.

“As long as the bullets weren’t going directly at me, I wasn’t too worried,” he said. “In golf, you really have to learn to concentrate and block things out. And anyway, a lot of worse things can happen to you playing golf than having someone shooting at you.”

Of course. Ever three-putt from 10 feet?

Pathological golfers: Mitch Voges of Simi Valley, who chased the leaders nearly into the clubhouse before settling for third place in last week’s Southern California Golf Assn. amateur championship, wears a visor and sometimes a pair of shorts emblazoned with the logo of Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo.

And Voges, who has a sense of humor as well as a solid golf game, gets a big kick out of asking golfers he doesn’t know if they have ever played Spanish Hills. Often, he said, the answer is yes.

“They say, ‘Yeah, I think I played there once.’ ” Voges said. “I just smile.”

Voges smiles because he knows that anyone who already has played the Spanish Hills golf course must have had a chain saw in his golf bag and must have driven a bulldozer instead of a golf cart. Spanish Hills, you see, is still a thick patch of forest and vines and sagebrush.

Groundbreaking began just a few weeks ago on the $150 million golf course and surrounding home sites. The course will be ready, according to Voges, the project’s membership director, in the spring of 1991.

The course site is in the hills of Camarillo, across the Ventura Freeway from the Camarillo Airport. The course designer is Robert Cupp, who worked as Jack Nicklaus’ main course designer for more than a decade, overseeing the construction of such noteworthy courses as Memorial in Ohio, Castle Pines in Colorado and Shoal Creek in Alabama.

The course superintendent at Spanish Hills will be Billy Fuller, the former superintendent at famed Augusta National in Georgia.

All of this won’t come cheaply. The 450 memberships will be offered in September starting at $50,000. More than 100 people already have signed up. What they will get, according to Voges, is a 45,000-square-foot clubhouse, swimming pools, tennis courts and a full health spa.

And a championship golf course.

“National Geographic magazine had an article two years ago naming the cities with the best climates in the world,” Voges said. “A town in Spain was No. 1, and Camarillo was No. 2. Billy Fuller says the weather is just perfect for greens and he said we could have the best golf greens in the western United States.

“And although the course is in hilly country, six of the 18 holes will be relatively flat. The other holes will have the typical style of Robert Cupp, in that the balls won’t be rolling off the fairways all day. He believes that fairways and greens should not repel golf balls, as is the case at many new courses. This will be a course for the members.”

Missing links: Dave Berganio of Sylmar, a former winner of the Los Angeles city championship, was ousted from the U. S. Public Links championships in Portland, Ore., in the second round of match play last week.

Berganio, 21, lost to Bob Baker of Little Rock, Ark., 2 and 1.

Back of the pack: Only one local player was even within one-iron distance of the winners in last week’s Junior World championships in San Diego. Heidi Voorhees of North Hollywood shot rounds of 75-78-79-74 for a total of 306 in the senior girls’ division. She finished 18 strokes behind winner Lisa Kiggens of Bakersfield.