Wi Getting Back Into the Swing : Golf: Playing competitively again after long layoff, he finishes second in qualifier for State Amateur championship.

Charlie Wi, an area golfer of considerable repute, went through golf withdrawal and dropped out of sight.

By the time Wi teed off last month in a qualifying event for the 83rd State Amateur championship, he was darn near trembling. He hadn’t played competitively since late last summer.

“I was really nervous,” Wi said.

It didn’t show. Wi shot 145 over 36 holes at Wood Ranch Country Club in Simi Valley to place second and advance with ease, which shouldn’t exactly raise many eyebrows. The fact that the popular, effervescent Wi was anxious beforehand could cause a few brows to wrinkle, though.

The State Amateur begins Monday on the Monterey Peninsula and Wi, 22, definitely knows the scenic terrain. He won the prestigious event two weeks after graduating from Westlake High in 1990. Last year, he advanced to the second round of match play before losing on the third hole of a sudden death playoff.

In August, he played in the U.S. Amateur, but then transferred to Cal from Nevada before the 1993-94 school year and redshirted. He will be a fifth-year senior in the fall.

All he did to fill time at Cal was practice, practice, practice. He didn’t have much choice.

“It was kind of tough not playing (in college tournaments),” Wi said. “But I learned a lot by sitting out.”

So it seems. The evidence indicates there are few signs of rust. Last weekend at the Southwestern Amateur in Phoenix, Wi placed fifth in a field of 208 at the Arizona Country Club with a 72-hole total of 286, two under par.

When he was playing at Nevada, Wi said, he went through the motions in practice--which he considered a necessary evil between competitive rounds. However, he benefited from the redshirt experience at Cal, he said.

“By sitting and watching, I think I became a better player,” Wi said. “I took the game a lot more seriously. When you’re always playing, you don’t take practicing seriously.”

Wi also has been selected to play in the North-South team competition. He is one of six members of the South team, which will compete in a match within a match. His scores during the stroke-play portion of the tournament Monday and Tuesday will count toward the team total.

But the real business at hand is the individual race. A field of 102 will play two rounds of stroke play before a 36-hole cut. The field will be split Monday between Spyglass Hill Golf Course and Pebble Beach Golf Links. The field will switch sites Tuesday with the low 32 players advancing to match play at Pebble Beach.

A minor adjustment was made in the tournament format, which resulted in the event being lengthened by one day. Only one round of match play will be held on both Wednesday and Thursday, instead of two. Previously, the afternoon round of match play on Wednesday took as long as six hours to complete because the public is allowed to play the course after competitors playing in morning matches have teed off.

“We think it will help bring back the over-40 crowd,” said Bob Thomas, an official with the Southern California Golf Assn. “We’ve had some players over 40 who could have made a run at the title over the past few years, but they ran out of gas (in the afternoon matches).”

Most of the eight players from the region who qualified won’t have to worry about the age factor--all but two are 25 or younger including Brandon DiTullio, 17, who will be a senior next fall at Westlake High.

Chad Wright, a Buena High graduate who just completed his freshman year at USC, is 18. Yasu Amaya, a Birmingham High graduate who now lives in Fresno, is 20.

Jamey Forsyth of Chatsworth and Paul Tanner of Sun Valley are 25. David Saylor of West Hills is the veteran of the bunch at 41. Saylor won the qualifier at Wood Ranch at 144.

Craig Steinberg of Van Nuys, 36, also qualifies as a relative graybeard, particularly in terms of experience. Steinberg, a USC graduate, three times has reached the State Amateur quarterfinals and twice reached the semifinals. He has won the SCGA amateur championship three times.

Casey Boyns of Pacific Grove, a caddie at Pebble Beach, will try to become the first player in 40 years to win consecutive titles. Stanford-bound Tiger Woods of Anaheim, the three-time U.S. Junior Amateur champion, is entered for the first time.