Local Knowledge

A funny feeling hit Dana Dormann three holes into a practice round at Wood Ranch Golf Club.

“I thought I played here 12 years ago, but I’m having no recollection,” Dormann said.

Maybe her memory will click before the weekend, when it counts.

Dormann is among 132 players competing at the $750,000 Los Angeles Women’s Championship on Friday through Sunday at Wood Ranch in Simi Valley, the LPGA Tour’s stop this week.

It’s the second tournament of the year for Dormann, 32, a former volleyball and golf standout at Hueneme High in her 10th year on the tour.

She missed the cut three weeks ago at the Subaru Memorial of Naples, Fla., dampening her expectations for the season.

“I’d like to finish in the top 30 [in earnings],” Dormann said. “I’d like to play more consistently than I played last year.”

Dormann played in 25 events last year, placing 93rd on the money list with $83,093. Her best finishes were a tie for 21st at the Longs Drugs Challenge in April and at the Jamie Farr Kroger Classic in July.

But her most electrifying moment came at the Chick-fil-A Charity in April, when she recorded her first LPGA hole in one.

After 225 tournaments, Dormann is 60th on the LPGA’s career money list with $1,362,329.

More than half of those earnings came in Dormann’s first four years on tour, when she was among the most promising newcomers after a stellar career at San Jose State, where she was All-American from 1986-88.

In her LPGA debut at the Oldsmobile Classic in 1991, Dormann was second behind Meg Mallon. She has won two tournaments, the 1992 Las Vegas International and the 1993 McCall’s Classic. Her best performances afterward were two second-place finishes in 1998.

Dormann likely would have fared better the last few seasons if not for the birth of her son, William, in 1995. She played in only 17 tournaments that year and has been trying to balance motherhood and her career ever since.

“It can be difficult, just like for any working mother,” Dormann said. “He was with me in 21 of the tournaments last year.

“We’re really fortunate. The LPGA has a traveling child-development center. William looks forward to going there. It’s really allowed me to continue playing. I wouldn’t be playing if I had to be away from him.”

Dormann, her husband John and William live in Pleasanton. She and William drove to the tournament on Monday and John, an assistant golf coach at San Jose State and a former LPGA caddy, is joining them for the weekend.

Some of the conversation between Dormann and one of her practice-round partners on Tuesday was about how William handled the long car ride to Simi Valley.

“He played games in the back seat,” Dormann said. “He didn’t even ask to stop.”

With William starting kindergarten in the fall and because she plans to have another child, Dormann is cutting down on her tour schedule next year. She expects to play 25 tournaments this season and about 18 in 2001.

For now, though, her focus is on the 6,222-yard, par-72 course at Wood Ranch, which once was familiar to Dormann.

She was born in Oxnard and played on the Hueneme boys’ golf team in the early 1980s.

Dormann, whose maiden name was Lofland, grew up next door to Paul and Tom Stankowski, and they played across the street in Port Hueneme at the Seabee Golf Club. Paul plays on the PGA Tour.

“We used to chip hundreds and hundreds of balls,” said Lou Rada, Dormann’s high school coach. “She was such a hard worker.”

At San Jose State, Dormann was Golf magazine’s top-ranked junior in 1985, her freshman season, and helped the Spartans win the NCAA title two years later.

After college, she competed on the European Tour before qualifying for the LPGA in 1990.

“That’s how I met Dana,” said Jay Rothenberger, her caddy since last year and a 17-year LPGA veteran. “I worked for her when she got her card through [qualifying] school. We’ve been friends ever since.

“She’s a sweetheart. She doesn’t scream at me too much.”

But she’ll rely on Rothenberger for help in navigating Wood Ranch, a place that now seems only vaguely familiar to her.

“What I remember best [about the course] is one of my partners had a hole in one,” she said.

WOOD RANCH GOLF CLUB / L.A. Women’s Championship

Wood Ranch

Golf Club

Simi Valley

Friday-Sunday