GOLF NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Local Girls Get a Home-Course Advantage From USGA

The Californians who have dominated the U.S. girls’ junior championship the last 10 years usually have had to leave the state to do it, but not this year.

The United States Golf Assn. will hold its 45th girls’ championship Aug. 2-7 at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa, marking only the fifth time the tournament has been in California since it was established in 1949.

Californians have won seven of the last 10 championships and several Orange County girls figure to be among the favorites at Mesa Verde. Alicia Allison of Santa Ana lost to Jamie Koizumi of Kailua, Hawaii, in the finals of the match-play tournament last year. Allison had beaten Kellee Booth of Coto de Caza in the semifinals.

Booth’s mother, Jane, a USGA committee member, said the USGA asked her several years ago to find a Southern California course on which to hold the 1993 event. The last Southern California course used was the Hacienda Golf Club in La Habra Heights in 1967. The tournament was in Marysville, in Northern California, in 1986.

Jane Booth said Mesa Verde, which has played host to several LPGA Tour events, was the first choice.

“It’s a big bonus for us to have the tournament out here,” Booth said. “Mesa Verde is such a good golf course. We thought that it would be a good challenge for the girls.”

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The USGA usually holds its women’s amateur championship near the girls’ junior event and this year the women’s championship will be a week later at San Diego Country Club in Chula Vista.

The reasoning is that some of the junior girls will try to qualify for the women’s championship. But at least one girl, Kellee Booth, is passing up that chance.

Booth, who will be a senior at Santa Margarita High in the fall, has received a qualifying exemption to the Insurance Youth Classic, a junior “major” that is holding a girls’ competition for the first time. The Big I, as the tournament is known, is in Little Rock, Ark., the same week as the women’s amateur.

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Oh back with juniors: Ted Oh, the 16-year-old from Torrance who competed in the U.S. Open last week, returns to competition among his peers at the Southern California PGA junior championship Monday through next Thursday at El Dorado Golf Course in Long Beach.

Oh, who has lost in the semifinals of the match-play tournament the last two years, will compete against a strong field of local junior players, including Chris Berry of Esperanza and Ben Garner of El Toro.

The boys’ championship has been won by Orange County players the last two years. Jeff Farley of Huntington Beach won last year and Dana Hills’ Scott Richardson, who played at Saddleback College this year, won the previous year. Laguna Hills’ Eunice Choi, who is headed for UCLA, won the girls’ title last year.

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While Oh was wowing them at the U.S. Open at Baltusrol, Tiger Woods, who failed to qualify for the Open, was drawing galleries of his own at an amateur tournament in Pittsford, N.Y.

Anywhere from 100 to 300 people followed Woods during early rounds of the Monroe Invitational, a tournament that draws some of the best amateur players in the nation. Woods, 17, the youngest player in the field, lost Sunday in the semifinals of match play to eventual winner Tom Creavy, a 1992 graduate of Stetson University in Florida.

“Tiger brought in more people than have ever come out to that tournament,” said Urla Hill, a reporter with the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “Even Sunday morning at 9, there were more than 150 people out there watching him. No one goes out to that tournament that early.”

Woods is playing major amateur tournaments to try to win one of the five remaining spots on the U.S. Walker Club team. He finished in a tie for 11th at the Sunnehanna Amateur in Johnstown, Pa., this month.

A USGA committee will complete the 10-member U.S. team in early August. The team will compete against one from Great Britain and Ireland Aug. 18-19 at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn.

Golf notes

With 11 of 30 Nike Tour events remaining, Bob May of Anaheim Hills is the fourth-leading money winner on the tour with $67,985. The top 10 money winners receive PGA Tour exemptions the following year. . . . The Southern California PGA awarded scholarships to help five local players with college expenses next year. Marina’s Brian Rea got $2,500 toward his first year at California, Mater Dei’s Caroline Lynch (Yale) received $1,600, Laguna Hills’ Stephanie Donihue (Cal State Long Beach) and Sunny Hills’ Stephen Sugarman (Stanford) each received $1,500 and Esperanza’s Kenneth Hall (Pennsylvania) received $1,000. . . . The Fullerton Golf Course will hold a free clinic for junior players July 1 at 1 p.m. The clinic, which will be run by the course’s staff of professionals, will include instruction on chipping, hitting, putting and sand play. For more information, call (714) 871-5141. . . . The SCPGA’s junior stroke-play championship and qualifying for the PGA national junior is July 12-13 at Glendora Country Club. The winning boy and girl will each receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Pinehurst, N.C., for the PGA Junior Aug. 24-27. Kellee Booth of Coto de Caza is the defending PGA girls’ champion and Eunice Choi of Laguna Hills was the runner-up. . . . Entrees are sought for the Ross Cortese Memorial tournament Aug. 6 at the Laguna Hills Leisure World Golf Courses. The fee is $200 ($50 for those 65 and over) and includes a banquet. Money raised will go to help support the Laguna Hills Senior Center’s nutritional, health and social programs. For information, call (714) 837-2020.