GOLF / STEVE ELLING : No Kidding Around for Senior Champion

Even at age 61, Paul Ladin is learning. Sometimes the hard way.

Last winter, Ladin’s lesson dealt with the importance of maintaining an even temperament.

While playing in the first round of the State Senior Amateur Championship at Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club, Ladin lost his temper for a split-second. Consequently, any shot at winning almost split, too. While playing the seventh hole, Ladin found himself surveying a 15-foot putt for birdie. He left it two feet short, which was bad enough.

His next putt rimmed the hole and came to rest “about an inch from the cup.” Infuriated with himself for three-putting from close range, Ladin angrily raked the ball toward the hole . . . and missed again.

Drats. From point-blankety-blank range, no less.

“I had to jump out of the way because the ball went five feet by me,” Ladin said.

It might be the first time anyone uttered, “Golf is a game of inch.” Nothing like needing to drain a five-foot tester to keep from five-putting a green.

Ladin, who lives in Westlake Village, didn’t go down the drain, though. He rallied to win the tournament in a playoff and is back to defend his title as play begins today in the third State Senior Amateur at Poppy Hills Golf Course on the Monterey Peninsula.

The field of 72, all age 55 or older, will be drastically trimmed to the low 24 plus ties for Friday’s final round. “I’ve never played better than I am right now,” said Ladin, who owns an auto dealership in Thousand Oaks.

Never played better? Shoot, he never played at all until he was 35, whereupon he had plenty of catching up to do.

“I thought Riviera was in Europe,” Ladin cracked, referring to Los Angeles’ most famous course.

He was a bogey golfer for years but began playing in earnest with top amateurs and high school players from golf-rich Ventura County. He asked questions. He tried to duplicate their shot-making skills. Lo and behold, the numbers got smaller. “I figured out that the best way to improve was to be around good players,” said Ladin, who graduated from Van Nuys High in 1950. “I’ve really gotten better over the past 10 years.

“I got older, but I got smarter.”

Now, the smart money’s on him. Ladin’s game is peaking, making him a favorite to repeat in the State Senior, a 54-hole stroke-play event. What’s more, during the tournament’s inaugural year, 1992, Ladin placed fifth.

The scary thing for the rest of the field is that Ladin might yet have room for improvement. At times he has demonstrated an ability to play with the nation’s best seniors, professional or otherwise. Jack, Arnie, Lee, all of ‘em.

After eight holes of the 1991 U.S. Senior Open at Oakland Hills Country Club in Birmingham, Pa., Ladin was playing so well that he almost needed smelling salts.

He was on television, he was listed on the leader board, he was on cloud nine. Actually, at one under par on the ninth hole, he was atop the leader board.

This fact was at once pointed out by his caddie for the week, a battle-weary curmudgeon known locally as “Crazy Larry.”

“So I immediately double-bogeyed,” Ladin said.

Thanks, pal. Ladin never recovered and missed the 36-hole cut. Ladin is taking no chances with his caddie this week. Former Westlake High and USC standout Chris Zambri, who caddied for Ladin in last year’s State Senior, is tagging along to Monterey.

Zambri, in fact, talked Ladin off the ledge when the latter missed the now-infamous one-inch putt at Ojai.

“Without him, I don’t win that tournament,” Ladin said.

He’s done fine since. In April, Ladin rolled up an impressive victory in Palm Springs at the Senior Masters, holding off a charge from two-time U.S. Senior Amateur champion Clarence Moore. Ladin finished six under in the 72-hole event. With each victory, his appetite and passion for the game increase. Now semi-retired from his auto sales business, Ladin is consumed by the sport. Good thing.

“I love the game--and I figured I can’t be out chasing women,” cracked Ladin, who is married. “I don’t like to gamble in Vegas, and I never had much luck with the horses.”

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Common thread: Sure, Chad Wright, Charlie Wi, Paul Tanner and David Saylor represent half of the eight area entrants in this week’s 83rd State Amateur Championship in Monterey.

That’s not all they have in common. Each is a member or past employee of Wood Ranch Country Club in Simi Valley. Not surprisingly, Saylor finished first with a 36-hole total of 144 in a State Amateur qualifier at Wood Ranch last month. Wi and Wright tied for second at 145.

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The OK Corral: Last guy out, close the barn door.

Jamey Forsyth of Chatsworth, who qualified for the State Amateur this week, is the latest in a growing list of players produced by the Valencia Country Club in Santa Clarita. Truth be told, he is the most recent player to rise from the ranks of cart-barn attendant.

Forsyth, a Hart High graduate who played at Cal State Northridge, follows in the footsteps of some other notables who paid their dues as blue-collar guys at Valencia. Last summer, Mark Singer of Simi Valley, another former Valencia employee, earned a berth in the U.S. Open.

Last winter, former Valencia cart attendant Bob Burns--a former NCAA Division II individual champion at Cal State Northridge--earned his PGA Tour card.