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Giving Her All to Regain Her Stroke : Golf: Despite spending two months in a cast after a snowboarding accident, Foothill’s Alicia Allison gets back into her game.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Alicia Allison never imagined that snowboarding would, in a roundabout sort of way, help her become a golf champion.

It’s not something she would recommend, however.

Allison, who won the American Junior Golf Assn. Betsy Rawls national tournament in July, broke her left ankle while snowboarding in Aspen, Colo., in late February. She spent two months in a cast, exercising little more than her brain. But it was time well-spent.

“I thought I was going to go crazy. I’m so used to being active,” said Allison, 16, who will be a junior at Foothill High. “But it helped me to be ready to put in a lot of time into golf when I came back. I realized how much I missed it.”

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The road back wasn’t easy, though. She was a two handicap before the accident, but afterward, Allison’s game took a dogleg-right into mediocrity--at least by her standards.

“When I came back I wasn’t shooting anywhere close to what I was the previous two years,” Allison said. “I went up to about a five (handicap). I was out there struggling. It got pretty depressing, actually.”

Known as much for her determination as for the long drives she generates from her 5-foot-3, 105-pound body, Allison was determined to regain her form. So she hit the driving range every day and worked with Tom Sargent, head pro at Yorba Linda Country Club, who has coached her the past five years. Everything started falling into place.

“She’s a bright kid,” Sargent said. “She likes to compete and she’s got some natural (athletic) gifts. She drives the ball remarkably well for her size. She can knock it about 210-220 yards off the tee, which would be the equivalent of a 400-yard drive for a 200-pound guy. She’s small but she has tremendously strong legs.”

That strength comes primarily from Allison’s cross-country training. She has run on the varsity team at Foothill the past two seasons but gave up the sport this summer to concentrate on golf.

“Cross-country took me out of golf for about two months last year,” Allison said. “I had to put golf on the back burner. I figured that if I’m going to be serious about golf, I had to give up cross-country.”

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A wise move, it seems.

Last month at the Betsy Rawls in Wilmington, Del., Allison shot a one-over-par 217 to win the three-day tournament by five strokes. Her three-under 69 in the second round on the 6,015-yard Hercules Country Club course is a personal best she said she owes to her putting that day.

“I was very comfortable with my putting all day,” said Allison, the 1991 California Junior State champion. “All I had to do was think where I wanted to hit the putt and it basically went there. Putting like that sure can make a difference. It can bring that score down pretty quick.”

Allison’s father, Robert, an Anaheim doctor and avid golfer, introduced her to the sport when she was about 10. A few good rounds later and Allison felt ready for the Masters. Or so she thought.

“I was 11 years old when I played in my first tournament,” Allison said. “I remember I parred the first hole and I thought I was a great golfer. Then I noticed this girl in front of me who was a massive hitter. I checked her score after the round and she had shot a 42. I had shot a 56 and I couldn’t believe anyone that age could shoot what she got.”

That girl was Kellee Booth, now a student at Santa Margarita High and one of the top junior players in the country. The two have since crossed paths many times, most recently when Booth faced Allison in a semifinal match of the U.S. Junior girls’ championship Aug. 7 at Indianapolis. There, Allison rallied from three-down after 13 holes and won four of the next five holes and the match.

But there were no such heroics in the championship match the next day. Allison was five-down after 10 holes to Hawaii’s Jamie Koizumi, and never caught up.

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Allison said the result wasn’t totally unexpected.

“My game was missing the whole tournament,” Allison said. “I had an in-and-out swing going. I had been on the road for five weeks and I was getting tired. My drives had no distance, the shots were fading away, and basically I had no confidence left. I knew what I was doing wrong but there wasn’t enough time (to straighten it out).”

The breakdown in her game was uncharacteristic for Allison, a player whom Sargent says is equal parts brain and physical talent.

“What she does, generally speaking, is she keeps the ball in play,” Sargent said. “This is where her intelligence comes into play. She has the ability to read and knows how to play each hole. She has great course management.”

She also has a good explanation for choosing golf over another sport, although frustrated hackers probably won’t agree with it.

“People wonder why I’m in a sport like this,” Allison said. “I like the fact that it takes four hours to play and that one bad shot can’t kill you. You have a lot of time to make up for your mistakes.”

And she’d rather spend time doing that than snowboarding.

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