After Only Four Years, Shearer’s Game Takes Wing

For 15-year-old Krystal Shearer of Northridge, next week’s U.S. Junior Girls championships at the Legends Course in Franklin, Tenn., is causing some concern.

Of course, there is the nervousness created by playing in a national tournament, the pressure of playing in a major event and the intimidation created by a quality field on a tough golf course.

But Shearer, a sophomore-to-be at Alemany High, is worried about something else.

“I’ve never been east of Utah,” she said. “So this is a big experience for me.”

Shearer recently won the Southern California PGA Girls junior championship with consecutive rounds of 77 at Industry Hills Golf Course. That victory earned her an exemption into the PGA National Junior Championships Aug. 21-24 at PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Add a spot on the Los Angeles team in the Youth Games Aug. 8-12 in New York and it will be three trips across the Mississippi for Shearer, who played against the boys as No. 6 player in her freshman year at Alemany.

“I’m a little bit nervous,” Shearer said. “But I have to just trust my game. I’ve noticed an improvement in my short game and my mental game over the last two months.”

Shearer took up the sport four years ago after her father requested she stop shopping.

“My dad started playing so my mom and I would go to the mall,” Shearer said. “He said, ‘I don’t think I like this,’ and he got my mom to start playing.”

Shearer said listening to golf stories and spending time at the range with her parents got her interested.

“I said, ‘Hey, maybe I should try this thing called golf,’ ” she said. “So I bugged [my parents] so much that they let me start.”

Good decision.

Shearer is a regular top-10 finisher at SCPGA junior events and has won six times in two years. She knows because she keeps all of her scorecards in a scrapbook.

“I just love everything about golf,” she said. “I like playing with other people, I like that it’s a gentleman’s game.

“And I get to learn a lot about other places. At the Junior World I played with people from Guam, Philippines and Hawaii. It’s interesting to find out about what they do and how they live.”

Shearer admits her chances of winning the U.S. Junior Amateur are slim, using the tournament as a experience builder instead.

“My goal is just to make the cut,” she said. “I would be happy with that.”

Past U.S. Junior champions from Southern California include LPGA Tour players Amy Alcott (1973), Kim Saiki (1983), Dana Lofand (1985), Brandie Burton (1989) and Notre Dame High graduate Emilee Klein (1991), who Shearer sees as a role model.

“Right now I just hope golf can get me through college on a scholarship,” Shearer said.

*

Recently crowned Southern California Golf Assn. amateur champion Craig Steinberg and 1997 Walker Cup team member Jason Gore of Valencia will travel to Hawaii next week as part of a three-man team representing the SCGA in the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship.

The 72-hole tournament will be played Tuesday through Aug. 1 at the Makena Resort South Course on Maui.

Mark Johnson of Helendale, a winner of 13 SCGA-related titles, completes the SCGA team.

“I like our team’s chances,” said Gore, who has not played in Maui before. “We have a good little team.”

The SCGA team will compete for the Morse Cup against teams from 29 other golf associations in the Western United States and Pacific Rim regions.

The high score from each team is dropped each day when compiling the team score.

*

It’s the trophy Tiger Woods won in 1994, 1995 and 1996, but can’t win this year.

Maybe that’s the reason for the dramatic increase in entries for U.S. Amateur qualifying next week.

A record 540 golfers will try to qualify at six sites throughout Southern California, including 101 Monday at Valencia Country Club.

The USGA added a sixth Southern California site because of the number of entrants, with 52 players who requested Valencia being moved to Desert Island Golf and Country Club in Rancho Mirage.

Other sites are The Victoria Club in Riverside, the SCGA Member’s Course in Murrieta, Glendora Country Club and Carlton Oaks Country Club in Santee.

Only 22 Southern California entrants will make the 312-player field for the U.S. Amateur, to be held Aug. 18-24 at Cog Hill Golf Club in Lemont, Ill.

“It’s certainly a record for us,” SCGA spokesman Bob Thomas said. “I’m sure it’s that way around the rest of the country.”

Local players trying to qualify include Steinberg, Darren Angel of Granada Hills, Chad Wright of Ventura, J.T. Kohut of Simi Valley and Ross Fulgentis of Westlake.

Gore qualified by making the Walker Cup team and Jason Semelsberger of Newhall made it by qualifying for the U.S. Open.