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GOLF NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Woods Takes Another Step Forward

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Tiger Woods, the only male to win three U.S. Junior Amateur golf titles, made another breakthrough Saturday in spectacular fashion.

Woods, 18, of Cypress, won the Pacific Northwest Amateur in Vancouver, Wash., routed Ted Snavely, 11 and 10, in the championship match on the 6,818-yard course at Royal Oaks Country Club.

It was the first victory in a non-junior event for Woods, who will attend Stanford in the fall.

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Woods closed out Snavely, the Oregon State Amateur champion who plays for the University of Oregon, on the 26th hole of a scheduled 36-hole match.

Woods shot nine-under-par 63--nine birdies and nine pars--in the morning and was 13-under for the day when he won. He needed only 30 putts to complete the 26 holes.

“That was the best round of my life,” Woods said Monday, “because I didn’t hit the ball all that great but I hit all the right spots and made my putts.”

The course record of 64 still stands because Woods was conceded three putts, the longest of which was about 18 inches.

Woods was the medalist in the two-round stroke-play qualifying for match play, shooting 68-69. In his 140 holes in the tournament, Woods was 35-under par.

Woods was at the top of his game despite suffering with a head cold. “Beware of the sick man,” he said. “Isn’t it always like that in sports: every time you’re sick you play well. It was one of those weeks that everything came together.”

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Woods hopes his performance this summer will earn him a spot on the U.S. team for the World Amateur team championship in October in France. Woods will play in three more amateur tournaments--the Southern California Golf Assn. Amateur, the Porter Cup in New York, and the Western Amateur in Michigan, before attempting to qualify for the U.S. Amateur in August.

Woods said he is especially looking forward to this weekend’s SCGA Amateur Friday through Sunday at Hacienda Golf Club in La Habra Heights.

“All my friends will be there to watch,” Woods said. “My best friend (fellow Western High graduate Bryon Bell) is going to caddie for me. So it’s kind of nice.”

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The SCGA starts at 7 a.m. Friday for two rounds after which a cut will be made to the low 42 and ties. Play starts at 7:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Hacienda Golf Club, 718 East Rd. in La Habra Heights, can be reached from Harbor Boulevard.

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Kemp Richardson of Laguna Niguel is also entered in the SCGA Amateur, but he doesn’t fit the profile of most entrants. Richardson is 48; most of his competitors are of college age.

“If you go to an amateur tournament that’s pretty much what you’ll find,” Richardson said. “You’ll find a few guys my age but you’ll have to look pretty hard.”

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But tough competition keeps him coming back, said Richardson, who was a two-time Pacific 8 Conference champion in 1967 and ’68 and a first-team All-American at USC.

“I wouldn’t enjoy just going out and playing,” he said. “I’d rather still try to be somewhat competitive. Not that I don’t like playing but I wouldn’t want just a steady diet of it.”

Richardson finished second in the SCGA Amateur in 1966 and ‘68, losing the ’66 title to John Jacobs on the third playoff hole.

Richardson’s father, John, won the SCGA Amateur title in 1973 and the 1987 U.S. Senior Amateur. John Richardson died in 1988.

Kemp Richardson, a stockbroker, carries a plus-1.9 index at El Niguel Country Club, but isn’t able to practice as much as he would like because of a bad back.

The back forced him out of qualifying for June’s California Amateur, but he still went up to Pebble Beach to caddie for his son, Scott.

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Carrying a bag with a bad back?

“I made it through 15 holes the first day and he had to take over,” Richardson said. “I made it nine holes the next day.”

Scott, a former Dana Hills High standout who played for Saddleback College in 1993 and will transfer to USC in the fall, didn’t make the cut to match play.

Scott won’t be playing in the SCGA tournament because he lost a six-way playoff for five spots in qualifying. Kemp was among the five who qualified.

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Coto de Caza’s Kellee Booth is playing in the U.S. Women’s Open this week at Indianwood Golf and Country Club in Lake Orion, Mich.

Booth, who graduated from Santa Margarita High in June and will attend Arizona State, won the U.S. Girls’ Junior title last year. This is her first U.S. Open.

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