Undistracted Angel Makes Self at Home : City Section golf: Granada Hills High junior fires 69 at Knollwood, taking a six-stroke lead in the individual competition.

Psssst. You distract him while I whack him a couple of times in the leg.

The players in Darren Angel’s foursome were only two-thirds of the way through the first round of the City Section Golf Championships when they jokingly began plotting a Tonya Harding-style attack.

By the 14th hole, Angel already had opened up a six-shot lead. A shot in the knee with a three-wood might have evened things up.

“I was thinking about it,” cracked Scott Golditch of Taft. “I was right behind him and I had a perfect angle.”

As expected, Angel pulled away from the field with a solid three-under 69 at Knollwood Country Club to take a commanding six-stroke lead in the individual competition entering today’s final round.

Angel, a junior from Granada Hills and the defending individual champion, ran away on the back nine with a three-under 33 that could just as easily have been a 31. Angel missed a three-footer for birdie on No. 18, leaving a glimmer of hope for Golditch, who shot 75, and Grant’s Josh Jacobs, who shot 77.

The again, maybe it is all but over.

“If I shoot 62 and break the course record and maybe I get in a playoff (today),” said Golditch, a senior who will play next year at California.

The course record, for the record, is 63--held by Angel. Golditch and Jacobs, playing in the same group with Angel, watched him march to a huge lead. Not much they could do about it.

“If we hit our drives like him, our irons like him and putted like him,” joked Golditch, “we might be as good as he is.”

Despite an intermittent drizzle, Angel’s continued reign as the individual champion looks like a slam-dunk. He missed only four greens and two fairways in regulation and belted one eye-popping drive an estimated 320 yards. Knollwood is his home course, to boot.

Had Angel not missed a handful of makable putts, he might have threatened his course record. He one-putted the first five holes of the back nine--three for birdies--to take the six-shot lead over Golditch, who was hanging on for dear life.

Same with Jacobs, who triple-bogeyed the first hole and struggled to stay in the hunt. Asked if he thought anyone had a prayer of catching Angel, Jacobs said, frankly: “I don’t think so.”

In short, it’s probably not a matter of who, but how many.

“I could have shot some real numbers,” said Angel, 17. “Not all the putts went in. I hit it pretty solid, though.”

In the team competition, defending champion Granada Hills shot a five-man total of 402 to take a one-stroke lead over Grant. Peter Yang (78) was the only Highlander other than Angel to break 80. Jacobs, Taylor Foster (78) and Allison Wilson (79) turned the trick for Grant. Taft is well back in third at 454, followed by Birmingham at 458.

The top two teams advance to the CIF-Southern California Golf Assn. Championships June 6 at Redlands Country Club.

The team race may be the lone remaining mystery today when play begins at Knollwood at noon. Angel, informed that his playing partners had kidded about staging a flank attack, laughed.

Even that might not be enough.

“I’ll come out in a wheelchair,” he said. “And I’ll still beat these guys.”