Camaione Lands in Unfamiliar Position

James Camaione shuffled off the course at Lakeside Country Club late Friday after completing the first two rounds of the Southern California Golf Assn. amateur championship.

He stopped to chat with some friends, shook several hands and shared a few laughs on his way to the scorer’s table.

Camaione, one of the most popular players on the amateur circuit, then raised some of their eyebrows when he posted his second-round score of 68, giving him a two-round total of three-under-par 137 and a share of the tournament lead.

Mark Johnson of Helendale shares the lead with Camaione with identical rounds of 69-68.

Jason Semelsberger of Newhall is one stroke back, Jason Gore of Valencia is tied with two others at 139 and Westlake High school junior-to-be J.T. Kohut is tied with Don Baker of Canoga Park at 140.

“I had a hot putter,” said Camaione, a 42-year old manufacturing salesman from Upland. “Usually putting is the last thing I do well.”

Camaione, of Crystalaire Country Club in Llano, has never won a major amateur tournament and wasn’t considered a contender in this tournament.

Johnson, a 43-year-old who drives a beer truck when he’s not on the course, is a different story.

He has a trophy case filled with awards from some of the top amateur tournaments, including the 1996 California state amateur, the 1996 Tournament of Club Champions title, the 1994 Pacific Coast amateur, and the 1993 and 1994 SCGA mid-amateurs. One piece of hardware missing from his collection is the SCGA amateur trophy.

“I hope this is the year,” Johnson said. “I’m running out of years.”

In good shape after the morning round, Camaione and Johnson each had their share of trouble in the afternoon, but managed to avoid big numbers.

Johnson got up and down for birdie from a near impossible lie behind the par-5 second hole. On No. 7, he hit his approach 20 yards over the green, behind a tree but punched out to within 15 feet of the hole and made the putt for par.

“I made some really critical recovery shots,” Johnson said.

Camaione was in trouble off the tee all day but made 25-foot birdie putts on Nos. 5 and 9 and hit a three-iron to within six feet on the second hole and made a birdie.

“Usually I get off the tee pretty well,” Camaione said. “But today I couldn’t hit it out of my shadow.”

Semelsberger, a 1996 Hart High graduate and UCLA sophomore, credited his participation in the U.S. Open last month for keeping his score low.

“I feel like no course can intimidate me like the U.S. Open [at Congressional],” he said. “The hardest holes at most courses don’t match any of the holes at the Open. That was a valuable experience for me.”

Gore, who won the California Amateur and California Open last month, is trying to become the first player since Johnny Dawson in 1942 to add the SCGA Amateur to those titles.

“I’ll take it,” he said of his position. “But I am a friend of the front-runner. It’s a lot easier to keep a lead than to come from behind. This leader board feels stacked.”

Three-time SCGA champion Craig Steinberg of Van Nuys and David Olsen of Encino head a group of six players at 141.

Tim Hogarth of Chatsworth, who flew in at 6 a.m. from Lexington, Ky., after being eliminated in the U.S. Public Links championship, shot a first-round 80 and withdrew.