Change in Attitude Revives Ewart

Seal Beach’s Sue Ewart used to be consumed by golf, playing or practicing nearly every day. At first she did it because she loved the game, then out of necessity.

Not surprisingly, she suffered burnout--and then faded away. After missing the cut at the 1982 U.S. Women’s Open at Del Paso Country Club in Sacramento, Ewart quit professional golf. At that time, making the cut in an LPGA event didn’t assure a player of a paycheck and Ewart’s year on the LPGA Tour wasn’t fruitful.

“You become dulled to what golf used to mean to you,” she said. “It’s just a big rat race, at least that’s the way I looked at it. You spent all that time grinding while just trying to make ends meet and you don’t know what’s going to happen next year.

“I didn’t want to spend the next 10 years of my life wondering.”

So she walked away from the game for nearly three years. When she returned, she had regained her amateur status, but still had to shed some old attitudes.

“I was falling right back into the old traps,” Ewart said. “Practicing for four hours, every shot had to be perfect. I didn’t like that and decided I had to make a change, so I started getting up to the ball and hitting it with reckless abandon, as they say.”

Her new outlook paid dividends and soon she was enjoying herself again. About a year after rekindling her competitive career, Ewart started volunteering. In 1986, she joined the Women’s Southern California Golf Assn. course rating committee, which helps determine slope ratings at local courses.

In 1992, she joined the U.S. Golf Assn. mid-amateur committee and two years later she was named to the USGA women’s committee. In her role, she runs local qualifying events for the U.S. Women’s Amateur yearly and the U.S. Open every other year.

Despite the organizational demands, Ewart says her game has never been better. Last week, she shot 76 at Riviera Country Club and comfortably qualified for the Women’s Amateur.

The Amateur, Aug. 5-10 at Firethorn Golf Club in Lincoln, Neb., will be her fifth, including four of the last five.

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Ewart was the first female to play for the Los Alamitos High School varsity golf team in 1974 and went on to star for Long Beach State.

Amy Fruhwirth, who played for nearby Cypress High a decade later, is having her best year on the LPGA Tour. Fruhwirth was 23rd on the money list with $128,289 before last week’s event in St. Louis, where she missed the cut by one stroke. Last season, her third on tour, she earned $112,469.

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Four other golfers from Orange County qualified for the Women’s Amateur at Riviera last week. Eunice Choi of Dove Canyon and UCLA shot two-over-par 74, Candida Kim of Coto de Caza and Pepperdine shot 76, Jenny Glasgow of Corona del Mar shot 77 and Lynn Hummer of San Clemente shot 79.

Maggie Merritt of Carlsbad was the medalist at 71.

Jenny Lee of Fullerton qualified July 18 in Lincoln, Neb. Lee, who will be a sophomore at Texas, was the medalist last year in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship.

Coto de Caza’s Kellee Booth, who will be a junior at Arizona State, is exempt. Booth advanced to the quarterfinals of the Amateur last year, losing to eventual champion Kelli Kuehne.

Notes

Terri Hunt, who plays out of Anaheim Hills, won the first flight of the Women’s Public Links Golf Assn. of Southern California eclectic tournament last week. The tournament, played at Singing Hills Country Club in El Cajon, took the best score for each hole from two rounds to provide an 18-hole total. Hunt shot 75, one back of overall winner Carla Loomis of Sepulveda. . . . International Christian Adoptions is holding a golf marathon at Redhawk Golf Club in Temecula. The organization, a worldwide adoption agency, is seeking 40 golfers willing to raise money by playing 100 holes on Sept. 23. For information: (909) 695-3336. . . . The British American Chamber of Commerce--Orange County is holding a tournament at Pelican Hill Sept. 16. The $225-per-player fee includes golf, prizes and an awards dinner. For information: (714) 452-9292.

Orange County Golf Notebook runs weekly. Readers are encouraged to suggest items. Call (714) 966-5904, fax (714) 966-5663 or e-mail Martin.Beck@latimes.com

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County Drives

Here is a look at the features that make one golf hold in Orange County stand out:

* Course: Coyote Hills, 1440 East Bastanchury, Fullerton, (714) 672-6800

* Hole: No. 18

* Length: 419, 393, 369, 346 and 245 yards

* Description: This finishing hold can be challenging if you don’t drive down the middle. A drive from the back tee must be at least 130 yards to carry the ravine from the back tees, but it looks like a mile.

* Hint: Right-handers can draw it around slight dogleg left or start left with a fade. If pin is in the back left, safest play is to try to land tee shot on right half of the fairway.

* Quote: “On some newer courses the waterfalls and streams look out of place. But here it looks like the stream could have been here 100 years.”--Jamie Mulligan, head professional