COLLEGE SPORTS : Birdies Flying Around Bay Area

Stanford won its first Pac-10 men’s golf championship since 1977. The University of San Francisco men’s golf team qualified for the NCAA regionals for the first time. San Jose State’s women’s golf team is ranked No. 2 in the country.

Apparently, birdies have been flying in abundance around the San Francisco Bay area intercollegiate golf scene this season.

“I think the players have always been around, but this is certainly the best overall year I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” said Wally Goodwin, the men’s golf coach at Stanford the last five years.

From the area that launched Tom Watson (Stanford), Ken Venturi (San Jose State), Bob Rosberg (Stanford), Roger Maltbie (San Jose State), Juli Inker (San Jose State) and Patt Sheehan (San Jose State), this year’s crop of players has amassed an impressive list of credentials.

USF’s Todd Fischer won the individual title at the prestigious Western Intercollegiate, firing a 5-under-par 67 on the final day to defeat Arizona State’s Phil Mickelson and Arizona’s Manny Zerman, considered the top players in college golf.

Tracy Hanson and Lisa Walton have each won three tournaments for the women’s team at San Jose State. Hanson, a junior from Rathburn, Idaho, is on course to better the scoring averages of Inker and Sheehan, who have gone on to become top players on the LPGA tour.

Christian Cavaer of Stanford won the Pac-10 individual championship by eight strokes, with Stanford sophomore Notah Begay III finishing second. Cavaer shot a course-record 67 in the first round en route to a 12-under-par 276.

San Jose State’s Bob Jacobson won the UCLA Bruin Desert Classic.

Stanford, San Jose State and the University of San Francisco men’s teams were all invited at the NCAA Western Regionals, which will be played next weekend in Tucson. Nine of the 18 teams competing at the regionals will advance to the national championships June 3-6 in Albuquerque.

Bay area players and their respective teams see plenty of each other during a season.

“We play in the same tournaments. I think it’s the greatest thing in the world that three teams from Bay area make it to the NCAA,” Goodwin said. “It’s not a sport of animosity like football, where you are trying to knock the other guy’s head off, or basketball.”

Golf as a team sport adds a dimension lost on the individual player.

“The whole thing changes when you put USF, the coach’s name, and list six names underneath,” Goodwin said.

A team enters five players with their four best scores counting towards the team score. No substitutions are allowed once a tournament begins so a team is completely dependent on all five players.

“We don’t spend a lot of time together except during tournaments,” Hanson said. “It’s like a family. We all have different personalities. We have conflicts like any team, but we put them aside during a tournament.”

While Stanford’s Pac-10 title signaled a rebound for the Cardinal, San Francisco’s first NCAA berth enables the Dons to push their way into national circles.

San Francisco finished seventh out of 18 teams at the Western Intercollegiate and was second to Pepperdine in the West Coast Conference tournament. Qualifying for the NCAA regionals is a big step up, according to USF coach Dick Nicolopulos.

“We’re the new kids on the block,” Nicolopulos said. “If we made it four years ago, we would not have done well. We would have been totally intimidated. Today, we can compete with the Arizona States and Arizonas. It’s not a pie in the sky. We are on that level.”

Stanford, which won six NCAA men’s golf titles between 1938 and 1953, has elevated its play since freshmen Steve Burdick and Jerry Chang have begun competing for team berths in tournaments.

“That seemed to give us the chemistry,” Goodwin said. “The last month and a half, we’ve come a million miles.”

While Goodwin estimates the freshmen have improved the team’s scores by half a shot per round. Cevaer, a senior from Cannes, France, is on track to set a school record for stroke average, averaging 72.7 over four years. Begay, a sophomore who is a full-blooded Navaho Indian, has averaged 71.8 strokes per round this year.

“The team played a wonderful Pac-10 tournament,” Goodwin said. “We won by 19 over Arizona State and 35 over Arizona. That was a real shellacking.” Stanford shot a four-under-par score as a team in the final round.

In the women’s division, San Jose State is as formidable as ever.

“It’s been good in this area, this is best team I’ve had in 15 years here,” San Jose women’s coach Mark Gale said. “ . . . I think all the women’s teams are getting better, but this is an off year (nationally) as far as women’s golf is concerned. It’s not quite as deep, but what’s there is really, really good.”

And two of those really, really good programs are at San Jose State and Stanford, which is ranked sixth. They are two of the five schools that Gale listed as favorites in the upcoming NCAA Championships. Arizona is considered the favorite. Georgia and Oklahoma State also figure as likely contenders.

Seventeen teams will compete in the 72-hole tournament over the Karsten Golf Course at Arizona State on May 27-30.

“We’re playing as good as we’ve played all year, record-breaking,” Gale said. “Our last tournament we shot minus-16, minus-3 and minus-11, which broke the record by 14 shots over a three-round tournament. That’s pretty good.”

San Jose State, national champions in 1987 and 1989 and runnerups last year after losing a one-hole playoff with UCLA, has won eight of the nine tournaments this season.

Hanson is in the process of rewriting the San Jose State record book. A top-10 finisher in 21 of 30 intercollegiate tournaments, Hanson has posted a scoring average of 75.0 and is on course to better Inker (75.23) and Sheehan (75.62). This year, Hanson is averaging 73.7.

San Jose State and Stanford will be among 17 schools competing at the NCAA women’s golf championships on May 27-30 on the Karsten Golf Course at Arizona State.