Santa Barbara Youth Struggles to Cope With Downturn : Junior World Golf: Chavez collapses on back nine, and Lee takes lead in boys’ 13-14 division.

Sometimes lessons come hard and early in life. Michael Chavez apparently got one Wednesday at Mission Trails Golf Course.

Golf, whimsical game as it is, will make you a hero one day and hold you hostage the next. It doesn’t always matter how your hitting the ball. Whether it was truly a new lesson or just a reminder, Chavez, of Santa Barbara, became the game’s latest example in the second round of Optimist Junior World Championships.

Chavez, 13, shot an opening-round 68, three under par at the par-71, 5,604-yard Mission Trails course. He tied Edward Loar of Rockwall, Tex., for the lowest round of the day and shared the lead among 131 competitors in the boys’ 13-14 division.

Today he has virtually no chance of winning the tournament, not after his second-round 77 Wednesday.

Bryan Lee of Clayton, after shooting 69 Tuesday, fired a five-under 66 to lead heading into today’s final round. Lee’s two-day total is 135, 10 strokes better than Chavez. Loar, after a 74, is seven strokes back at 142.

Chavez played at par on the front nine before unraveling down the stretch with five bogeys and one double-bogey.

“How do I feel?” said Chavez, grasping for words, his tanned face and squinted eyes staring at the horizon. “I’m kind of mad, really.”

Then, after some prompting from his father, Chavez added, “Yeah, there’s always tomorrow.”

Chavez and his three partners appeared to be having fun as they played their last holes. They were so loose, at times they nearly dropped their clubs with laughter. Four boys alone, out on the Trails.

All of them shot par or better on the front nine. Lee Bauman of San Diego finished with a 74, but didn’t make the cut with his 156 total. Billy Harvey of Las Vegas shot 72. At 150 for two rounds, he made the cut by four strokes.

Daniel Chartrand’s two-day total of 144 puts him nine back after his 71. Chartrand, from Winnipeg, suggested his name be changed. He was minus-four at 13 then bogeyed his way back to par.

“Just call me Choke-rand,” he cracked. The others, except Chavez, laughed.

The playful banter stopped when this foursome found a gallery at the 18th green. Their nerves became exposed. Chavez, making a bid for birdie after double-bogeying 17, reached the fringe of the green with a 260-yard drive.

He couldn’t get his 70-foot uphill chip shot to sit, and it rolled eight feet long. His first putt went wide, missing the cup by inches. He had to settle for par.

“I couldn’t make putts, I drove the ball into trouble . . . kind of lost my concentration,” Chavez said. “I missed a lot of putts yesterday, too.”

Chavez was not the only one who felt helpless after Lee shot the best round of his life Wednesday.

“I had eight putts inside eight feet and missed them all; I couldn’t hit the cup,” said Matt Christensen, 14, of Rancho Bernardo, who is nine strokes back after rounds of 71 and 73. “Today I’ll have to use my driver on all the par-fours and try for the pin on every tee. It should be interesting.”

“The groundskeepers were watering the greens between groups,” said Andrew Kane of Del Mar, who faltered with a 78 after shooting 71 on Tuesday. “I felt I was going to shoot better today; it actually felt like I was playing better. But I couldn’t tell the speeds of the greens.

“On 18, the guy almost got me with the water.”

Golf Notes

Tiger Woods of Cypress shot a 71 on to hold a two-stroke lead in the boys’ 15-17 division. Gilberto Morales of Venezuela is in second. Erika Hayashida leads the girls’ 15-17 division by five strokes.