GOLF / STEVE ELLING : Mission Was Successful for Bommer

Must have been the accounting background. After all, every scorecard is a mini-ledger. Every leader board is a balance sheet.

Nonetheless, for most of his life, Terry Bommer’s favorite wood was his pencil.

“I played maybe three or four times a year,” Bommer said. “But I became a student of the game.”

And a teacher too. Bommer, an accounting and finance teacher at Mission College, started the school’s golf program from scratch in 1981 and has built it into one of the region’s best-kept secrets.

Bommer’s qualifications for a college coaching position in golf were, well, laughable. In class, Bommer would say his debits outpaced his credits.

He played basketball and football in college at UC Santa Barbara, but never pretended to be more than a weekend golfer at best.

In 1981, the golf team was formed with something less than trumpets and fanfare. It seems that the athletic director’s position at Mission was facing elimination unless the school added a sport, and the director was one of Bommer’s friends.

So, Bommer agreed to help his pal. The pair considered starting a tennis team, but settled on golf.

“We though it might be cheaper, among other things,” he said.

Once a bean counter, always a bean counter.

Bommer, practically a novice, studied the game. Soon thereafter, Mission moved to the top of the charts.

“On a given day, even a blind dog will find a bone,” said Bommer, 47.

Mission placed second in the state team championships in 1983, won the title the following year and has rolled up eight conference titles in the past 12 years.

What’s more, three Mission players have won the state individual title, including Mike McCune, who won this spring in Monterey. Derek Goldstein, who played on the same Taft High team as McCune, won in 1984 and Bob Burns, who later played at Cal State Northridge and now competes on the Nike Tour, won in 1987.

Dave Berganio, the 1991 U.S. Public Links champion and the runner-up in the State Amateur last summer, recently completed his eligibility at Arizona State and also graduated from Mission.

As heady as Mission’s accomplishments have been as a team, Bommer also proved he was more than a good recruiter. He worked on his game in earnest and became an accomplished player.

In the fall of 1991, Bommer qualified through a series of tournament victories for a berth on the three-member United States team that competed in the BMW International Cup in Spain.

Like his team had done years before, his personal game was taking off.

“They flew us over in first class and everything,” Bommer said. “It was a very nice affair.”

The world was his oyster, his pearl a golf ball. Competing against amateur teams from 22 countries, Bommer and team USA won the gold--or rather, a crystal globe of the world.

“If you would have told me a few years ago that I’d be playing in something like this,” Bommer said, “I probably would have laughed.”

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Local knowledge: When folks at the Oxnard City Golf Championships heard that Jose Luis Hernandez scored a hole in one during the first round at River Ridge Golf Course on Saturday, it was as though he had been charged with insider trading.

Hernandez, you see, is a maintenance worker at River Ridge. Shoot, he ought to know the course better than anyone, they reasoned.

By the time the tournament was over, this would be a common theme.

All things considered, it was a great weekend for River Ridge employees. Mark Munoz, a maintenance worker who carries a five handicap, was the surprise winner in the championship flight with rounds of 75 and 71.

Munoz’s one-under 71 in the final round Sunday--the lone sub-par round of the day--left him in a tie with Mark Hainbach of Thousand Oaks and forced a playoff. And Munoz showed why they call it sudden death , because he went from vanquished to victor in the blink of an eye.

On the second playoff hole, Hainbach, 29, pitched to within inches of the cup and had a tap-in left to save par. Munoz, 36, who lives in Ventura, faced a twisting 55-footer for birdie and was definitely in three-putt territory.

He had a friend tend the flagstick. The putt crawled up over a small mound, then curled to the right. Lo and behold, Munoz canned the putt.

“You know how you think sometimes that it might go in?” Munoz said. “I couldn’t even see the hole. I never thought it was going in until it disappeared.”

Jack Faggeter, a maintenance supervisor at River Ridge, won the C Flight with a net 139.

Hernandez, playing in one of the tournament’s handicap flights, aced the 17th hole, a 140-yard par 3, with a pitching wedge.

Unfortunately, his play was a little better than his math. Hernandez, a 10-handicapper who lives in Oxnard, signed an incorrect scorecard and was credited with an 86, rather than an 84.

Other area players in the top 10 of the championship flight were Rio Mesa High/University of Houston freshman Lawrence O’Neil (tied for sixth), Cal State Northridge Coach Jim Bracken (seventh), former Newbury Park High star Darren Humphrey (tied for eighth) and Hart High/Arizona standout Jason Gore.

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Roll out the carpet: The First Los Angeles Amateur Putting Championship is in progress at the Roger Dunn Golf Shop in North Hollywood. Indoors.

The competition is being staged on a $100,000 computerized putting green that measures 12 by 24 feet. The green is capable of an infinite variety of contours.

The contest, which features $5,000 in cash and prizes, is open to amateurs who pay a $10 entry fee. Competitors must hole three of six balls on one of four pre-selected contours to advance to the finals Aug. 3.

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Road trip: Three San Fernando Valley high school standouts are playing this week in the Rolex Tournament of Champions in Roswell, Ga.

Darren Angel of Granada Hills High is playing in the boys’ event, and Grant teammates Elise Kimm and Allison Wilson are in the girls’ tournament.

Kimm and Wilson finished in a four-way tie for second last week in the Las Vegas Founders’ junior tournament at Legacy Golf Course in Henderson, Nev. They finished with a 54-hole totals of 223, two shots behind Jody Niemann of Rigby, Ida. By virtue of their finish, Kimm and Wilson team qualified for the Rolex event.

“(Georgia) definitely wasn’t a planned stop,” said Wilson’s father, John.

Heading into the 17th hole of the final round at Henderson, Wilson was tied for the lead with Niemann. Her drive on the 17th settled near a stake marking a water hazard, and Wilson was forced to hit the ball left-handed.

Wilson, 16, bogeyed the hole and Niemann made birdie to wrap up the victory.

Afterward, Wilson learned from an official that she could have removed the stake with no penalty, her father said.