GOLF : Steinberg Hit the Dirt to Post Southern California Amateur Win

Craig Steinberg of Van Nuys spends six frantic days a week in his office, trying to build his optometry practice. Three nights a week he attends law school at the La Verne. He’s also active in another slightly time-consuming endeavor: raising a family.

Golf? You must be kidding. Golf in the Valley is a full-time job. The crowded conditions at courses and practice ranges have become almost unbearable. Six-hour rounds of golf are as common as a weekend duffer spotting his ball 50 feet out of bounds, flinging it back into play and then announcing loudly to his partners, “ Found it! “

So just what in the name of screaming duck hooks was Steinberg doing last week winning the Southern California Golf Assn. Amateur championship?

He says he owes it all to dirt.

Steinberg, 33, a standout on the USC golf team more than a decade ago and an avid amateur since, had stumbled badly recently. He failed to make it to the sectional qualifying tournament for the U.S. Open, after having reached that final qualifying tournament six times previously. Then, he struggled again in the California Amateur championship on the Monterey Peninsula, being ousted in the opening round of match play. A week later, he played two good rounds in stroke play in the prestigious Trans-Mississippi championship at Lakeside, but faltered again in match play, losing in the first round.

“Heading into the SCGA championship, I was anxious to play good golf for a change, but I didn’t know what to expect because I just hadn’t played well all summer,” Steinberg said. “I was really slipping badly.”

But on the final day of the SCGA, Steinberg rallied from three strokes behind on the final nine holes, beating Bob Clark of Murrieta by a stroke. Steinberg became only the second player in 30 years to become a two-time winner of the championship, also winning in 1988.

The dirt?

Well, it was on a patch of dirt adjacent to the Woodley Lakes golf course practice range in Van Nuys that Steinberg made the discovery that his swing had become a mess.

“I went to the range to hit some balls after work, but it was closed,” Steinberg said. “So I just took a sand wedge and parked my car on the dirt and started hitting balls back onto the practice range, over the fence.”

The balls Steinberg was hitting were strays, balls that had been errantly knocked over the side fence by those golfers who believe the shouted word FORE is an integral part of the game. The kind of golfer that Steinberg feared he was becoming.

But . . .

“Because I was hitting off dirt, I had to use a punch shot, with a short backswing,” he said. “And all of sudden all the feeling came back to me. I started hitting the balls more solid than I had in a year. By taking a shorter backswing, by making my swing more compact, everything came back to me.”

An excited Steinberg rushed to the Bel-Air Country Club, site of the SCGA Championship, early the next morning to re-establish the dirt lesson.

“And I hit a lot of good shots. Not perfect shots, but really good shots,” he said. “Then, in the first 36 holes of competition, my timing just got better and better. By Saturday, I was really playing well.”

So well that he shot a 69, a score that could have been much lower.

“I three-putted twice and double-bogeyed a hole,” he said. “Realistically, I could have shot a 65 that day.”

And on Sunday, his 74 was good enough to overhaul Clark and win the championship.

“It wasn’t so much actually winning, but just having the chance to win,” Steinberg said. “That’s all I wanted. I needed to prove to myself that I can still compete. I had played so poorly the last six months that I didn’t know any more if I could compete out here.

“That was my main thought coming down the stretch at the SCGA tournament. I was just so thrilled that I had a chance to win. The fact that I did win was just a bonus.”

Next for Steinberg is the Pacific Coast Amateur championships, which begin next week in Flagstaff, Ariz.

“My goal for years now has been to make a Walker Cup team,” Steinberg said. “You put yourself in position by winning these events, events people pay attention to. I’d like to win the U.S. Amateur one year. But until I get another chance, tournaments like the SCGA and the Pacific Coast get people’s attention too.”

Steinberg plans to have a law degree within two years so golf may get knocked down a notch on his list of Things to Do . But Steinberg figures he can survive his schedule.

As long as he finds a small patch of dirt to practice on once in a while.

Upcoming: Next week’s Pacific Coast Amateur also will feature David Berganio Jr. of Sylmar, who won the 66th U.S. Amateur Public Links championship last week in Columbus, Ind.

Berganio, 20, a junior at the University of Arizona, defeated defending champion Michael Combs in the final of match play Saturday.

He will represent the Southern California Public Links Assn. in the Pacific Coast Amateur, opposing 12 other teams from the western United States and Canada.

The SCGA team will include Steinberg and Mitch Voges of Simi Valley. Teams compete for the Morse Cup in the 72-hole stroke-play tournament while players also compete for individual honors.

Shark shootout: Greg Norman’s annual golf event at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks has been formally renamed. Now known as the “Shark Shootout Benefiting Ronald McDonald’s Children’s Charities,” the third tournament will be held Nov. 20-24. And while it is doubtful anyone other than Norman and tournament organizers will use the official name, the tournament is likely to continue as a big success.

In addition to drawing some of the biggest names in golf--Norman, Arnold Palmer Jack Nicklaus, Fred Couples, Curtis Strange, Ian Baker-Finch, Raymond Floyd, Ben Crenshaw and Lanny Wadkins are expected to return--the event has raised more than $1.7 million for Ronald McDonald children’s charities.