GOLF / STEVE ELLING : For Mike Turner, Left Is Right

Mike Turner is a little different from most golfers, and it has nothing to do with the earring he wears.

Doesn’t take long to figure it out, either. His swing is a mirror image of textbook form, solid and consistent. Yet Turner is all turned around.

He plays left-handed.

What separates Turner from most portsiders is that he is one of the elite amateurs in the Southland. In fact, he shot a sizzling, two-under-par 70 on Monday at Wood Ranch Country Club in Simi Valley to earn medalist honors in a field of 93 players during a qualifying tournament for the Southern California Golf Assn. Mid-Amateur Championship.

Left-handers, while making inroads in the sport, are still a rare bird. For decades, left-handed golfers were encouraged to play with right-handed clubs. In fact, being left-handed was practically considered a birth defect. Ben Hogan and Johnny Miller are two lefties who made the switch.

Left-handers are making progress, however. The stigma is all but gone. In fact, it has been reversed in some quarters.

Phil Mickelson, a former U.S. Amateur champion who plays on the PGA Tour, is a right-hander who plays from the left side. Some believe that a player’s dominant arm should pull, not push, the club through the impact area. In short, a natural right-hander should play with left-handed clubs, and vice versa.

There has been no mass exodus from the traditional, however. Turner, who lives in Sherman Oaks and played at Cal State Northridge, never considered the switch.

“Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done left-handed,” Turner said. “When I started playing at age 13, I found some left-handed clubs.”

There are still barriers for lefties. Turner often has trouble locating state-of-the-art equipment, though clubs for left-handers are much more available than in the not-so-distant past.

“That can be a little frustrating,” he said. “You can’t just say to a friend, ‘Let me try that club.’ ”

Unless the friend is a lefty, and the odds of that are pretty slim. Turner said he was a member of the defunct Southern California Left-handed Golfers Assn., which folded a few years back. Its membership, he cracked, was “about 10.”

At last week’s Pacific Coast Amateur in Vancouver, Turner said, there were three or four left-handed players in the 90-man field.

Turner, 36, has spent the past few years proving to area amateurs that being a lefty isn’t the kiss of death. He won the L.A. City Men’s Championship in 1987 and 1991 and is a three-time Southern California Public Links champion.

To him, it is not a novelty or a hindrance. What the heck, if you can hit the ball as straight as a laser-guided missile, what’s the difference?

“You can hit a ball straight, right?” he said. “Most people can, at least sometimes. The only difference is that I do it a higher percentage of the time. And if you can hit it in the fairway, does it really matter?”

*

Gift rap: As a present for his 90th birthday, the Valencia Country Club shipped 90 new Titleist golf balls to legendary entertainer Bob Hope, an honorary member of the club who lives in Toluca Lake.

The balls were inscribed, “Happy 90th Bob.” Hope enjoyed the present so much that he ordered 10 dozen to use as personal mementos.

Hope sent the following thank-you note to the folks at Valencia: “Just want to thank you for the big basket of golf balls. It’s great, because now when I hit one into the water, the fish know who to send it back to.”

*

See you next year: Jason Gore of Valencia shot a final-round 69 in the Porter Cup Championship at Niagara Falls Country Club in New York last week, his best round of the four-day tournament.

It wasn’t nearly enough to win, but it helped earn him a return trip to the tournament next summer.

Gore, who won the Pacific 10 Conference individual title in April as an Arizona freshman, finished at seven-over 287 and tied for 28th. The top 30 received invitations for next year. Champion Joseph Gullion of Minnesota shot a 275.

The Porter Cup field annually includes some of the nation’s best amateurs and is considered a major proving ground for those hoping to earn a berth on the U.S. Walker Cup team.

David Berganio of Sylmar, who won the U.S. Public Links title last month, was scheduled to play but withdrew after suffering a pulled muscle in his rib cage.

Gore and Charlie Wi of Thousand Oaks are playing this week in the Western Amateur at Point O’Woods Country Club in Benton Harbor, Mich. The results of the Western also are closely watched by the Walker Cup committee.

*

Putt for dough: The finals of the inaugural L.A. Amateur Putting Championship will be held Thursday from 5-8 p.m. at the Roger Dunn Golf Shop in North Hollywood. Cash prizes totaling $2,500 will be awarded, including $500 for the winner.

The competition is being staged on a $50,000 electronic putting green that measures 12 by 24 feet and adjusts at the touch of a button. The finals will be a match-play event with seeding based on a player’s performance in qualifying held over the past few weeks.

By early this week, about 10 players had qualified for the finals by making the required three of six putts.