Four Get Passes to Riviera
More than 200 golfers gathered Monday at Industry Hills Golf Club, all trying to find their way to Riviera Country Club.
Only four got the right directions.
Journeyman PGA Tour pro Omar Uresti will join mini-tour players John Ray Leary and Brian Nosler and Southern Methodist University junior Will Dodson at Riviera beginning Thursday after the quartet survived the nerve-racking process of a Monday qualifier for the Nissan Open.
Uresti, who has a tour card this year but not enough status for an exemption into an event as popular among pros as the Nissan Open, shot a four-under-par 67 on the Zaharias Course and was the only player among the four that did not need a playoff to earn his spot.
Leary, from Culver City and USC, shot 68 on the Zaharias Course, then knocked a lob wedge to within eight inches and made a birdie on the first hole of a three-way playoff for one spot. Dodson and Nosler each shot 67 on the Eisenhower Course, then made pars on the first hole of a three-way playoff.
Jeff Sanday was the odd man out on the Eisenhower Course. His double bogey on the 18th hole of regulation forced him to into the playoff and his bogey on the first sudden-death hole knocked him out of the tournament.
“I’m just happy to make it through,” said Uresti, who finished sixth at the 1997 Nissan Open and 10th in 1996. “Monday qualifying can be a crap shoot.”
The players competing for spots ranged in experience from veterans such as 1987 Master’s champion Larry Mize to Lucas Lee, a senior at Torrance High.
Among those who didn’t make the cut were Casey Martin, who shot 69 on the Eisenhower Course, and Mize, who shot 70 on the Zaharias. Lee, among the youngest players in the field, shot 76 on the Zaharias.
Isabelle Beisiegel, who for the second consecutive year was trying to become the first woman to gain entry to a PGA Tour event through Monday qualifying, shot 75 on the Zaharias Course.
Leary, who turned professional in 2000, qualified for the 2003 Nissan Open and the 1996 Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, but missed the cut in both.
“It’s pretty special to get back in there,” he said. “You don’t want to take it for granted when you have a shot at the big show.”
Nosler and Dodson will make their tour debuts. Nosler has spent most of the last three years playing mini-tours.
Dodson was an NCAA All-American last year and is still an amateur. This was his first try at Monday qualifying.