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Chip Shots
» Top pros eye Shaughnessy
» New Juniper unveiled
» Team matches all set
» Circling Raven meets Scotland
» Aces come in bunches
» USGA's Idaho visit a winner
» Getting skunked by rules
» Bend-area courses set for PacAm
» PNGA loses volunteer leader
Top pros eye Shaughnessy
Defending champion Vijay Singh, Fred Funk and Chris DiMarco, all in the top 10 on the PGA Tour's money list, have confirmed they will be at Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club in Vancouver, B.C., for the Bell Canadian Open this month.
The tournament will be held Sept. 8-11 on the 7,010-yard, par-70 layout that looks out over the mouth of the Fraser River.
Tickets are still available on a limited basis, and can be ordered online at www.bellcanadianopen.ca, or by calling 1-800-571-OPEN.
Singh and DiMarco took in a day at Shaughnessy last May, and DiMarco talked about that during a recent press conference.
"I know Vijay loved the golf course," DiMarco said. "It's funny, in a press conference he said he wanted to know the other 13 courses that were ahead of this course in Canada's top 14, because I can tell you what, I've played a lot of courses in Canada, and I have never played a better one than Shaughnessy. So I really look forward to playing it."
The tournament is expected to draw an impressive field, including Australia's Stuart Appleby and Peter Lonard, England's Justin Rose and South Korea's K.J. Choi.
"We are extremely excited to welcome such phenomenal athletes and PGA champions to the 2005 Bell Canadian Open," said Bill Paul, the tournament director.
New Juniper unveiled
 The New Juniper Golf Club opened July 1 in Redmond, and marked the first new course in Oregon designed by Northwest golf course architect John Harbottle III.
Harbottle has done remodel or consultant work at Eugene Country Club, Portland Golf Club, Waverley Country Club, Illahe Hills and Oswego Lake, but had not done a new course in the state.
The course replaces the old Juniper Golf Club, a city of Redmond course that was lost to airport expansion in Redmond.
The new course is centered around a long, rock ridge that bisects the property with holes above, below and over the outcropping.
Numerous risk-and-reward holes offer intrigue at the end of the round.
"They are designed to enhance the opportunity for a lead to change," Harbottle said of the closing holes, including the par-5 18th, which offers plenty of water, desert and decision making.
Team matches all set
A team competition among the four state and provincial golf associations in the Northwest is slated to begin next May.
The inaugural PNGA State and Provincial Team Matches will be held May 3-5, 2006, at Seattle Golf Club.
The state associations from British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon and Washington will be represented by 12-person teams. Each team will have four men's mid-amateurs (25 and older), two men's master-40 (40 and over), two senior men (55 and over), two women mid-amateurs and two senior women (50 and over). There will be a total of 24 matches for each association and a team point is available in each match. There will be foursome matches (alternate shot), four-ball matches (best-ball) and singles matches.
In future years, the event will rotate among the four associations.
Circling Raven meets Scotland
Tradition and history will be center stage Sept. 19-23 as Circling Raven Golf Club of Worley, Idaho, plays host to Royal Dornoch Golf Club of Scotland in a Ryder Cup-style team competition.
On the surface, it might seem odd that a club with hundreds of years of history such as Royal Dornoch, founded in 1616 and the third-oldest course in Scotland, would be involved in an international competition with Circling Raven, barely two years old.
But the people and the cultures that make up the two clubs do have a lot in common.
"The time has come for Indian Country, where golf and an appreciation for it is booming, to come together with the Highlands of Scotland, where golf was born some six centuries ago," said David Matheson, chief executive officer of the Coeur d'Alene Casino Resort Hotel. "Golf is a perfect catalyst, but we here also see historical and cultural parallels. During my recent visit to Scotland, I was moved to see Highlanders honoring and preserving their ancient language, traditions and culture. Their fierce and historic struggles for independence and autonomy are known to the world, as are those of Indian Country."
Each club will be represented by 12-man teams in the three days.
"The Coeur d'Alene Tribe and the Highland Clans will come together for the first time ever, certainly with pride to share in their golf courses," Matheson said.
The opening ceremonies on Sept. 19 will include traditional tribal drums, bagpipers and blessings in Gaelic and Schitsu'umsh, the ancient Coeur d'Alene language.
Aces come in bunches
The sun and the planets must have been aligned perfectly over the Puget Sound region because there's been a rash of unusual hole-in-one occurrences.
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| Oakbrook hole-in-one shooters, from left, Pam Burns, Doris Hudson, and Rose Lewis. |
In Lakewood, Wash., at Oakbrook Golf and Country Club, three different women had a hole-in-one during the final round of a Nine-Hole Women's Division tournament.
Last year, there was just one ace by a woman at Oakbrook, and this year that was tripled in one day as three of the 30 women, playing just nine holes, each recorded their first ace.
"We thought it was somewhat surreal," said Pam Burns, one of the three.
"It was almost like you thought, 'Oh, I guess these are pretty easy to do.'"
Rose Lewis had the first one, with a 5-wood on the 115-yard sixth hole. Burns followed two groups later and did it with a 7-iron. And just as all the talk started circulating about the big celebration that would ensue afterward, Doris Hudson came up with another ace on the 120-yard fourth hole, using a 3-wood.
At Everett Golf & Country Club, it was a surreal feeling for Bobbie Rochford. Last fall, Rochford had an ace on the 98-yard eighth hole, using a 6-iron. As is the custom at EG&CC, a big celebration was planned for later. The party was May 31 of this year, and on the same hole, playing in the exact same foursome, and using the same club, Rochford did it again.
While that's amazing in itself, if anyone had a chance of doing that it was Rochford, who now has seven aces to her credit.
On the men's side of things, Tom Backamus had a rare hole-in-one on a par-4, doing it on the 277-yard sixth hole at Lake Wilderness.
It came during a scramble tournament, leaving the rest of his team with little to do on that hole, and the team went on to win the title.
USGA's Idaho visit a winner
 After the four years of preparation for the U.S. Girls' Junior Championship at BanBury Golf Club in Eagle, Idaho, everyone was saying what everyone wanted to hear once the competition came to a close in July.
Officials at BanBury said they'd jump at another chance to hold a USGA national championship, and USGA officials indicated a desire to return to the state of Idaho.
The U.S. Girls' Junior, won by In-Kyung Kim, right, of South Korea, over In-Bee Park of Las Vegas, Nev., 5 and 4, was the first time the USGA had held a national championship in Idaho.
While the temperatures were high, and some of the scores low, there were smiles all around, except maybe on the faces of some of the teenagers who had lost their matches.
Getting skunked by rules
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Vijay Singh, John Daly, Stephen Ames, and Jack Nicklaus enjoy the fairways of Nicklaus North.
Photo courtesy IMG |
As the Telus Skins Game returned to Whistler, B.C., this summer, the four competitors were led by the legendary Jack Nicklaus, who designed the host Nicklaus North course. Joining him were PGA Tour star Vijay Singh; Diet Coke-chugging, Marlboro-puffing, and long ball-hitting John Daly; and Stephen Ames, a Trinidad-Tobago native who became a Canadian citizen after marrying a flight attendant from Calgary. The combination made for an entertaining event.
Joining the foursome and serving as the Rules officials for the internationally televised event were Kris Jonasson, the executive director of the BCGA, and John Bodenhamer, the PNGA's executive director.
Jonasson was a veteran of five previous Skins Games in Canada and invited his buddy Bodenhamer to join him this go-around at Whistler.
"When he invited me a few months ago, I thought we would be one of probably 10 officials following play," said Bodenhamer. "When I arrived, I learned it was just Kris and I and 5,000 of our closest friends walking with the players and making instantaneous Rules decisions on live international TV!"
Everything was going smoothly until the 15th hole on the second day. Singh hit into a Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA), from which Bodenhamer informed him he could not play his ball in accordance with the Rules of Golf and conditions set down for play. After a fan found his ball in somewhat of a playable lie, Singh protested, until Jonasson arrived and backed up Bodenhamer's ruling.
"I guess he just wanted a second opinion. I can't blame Vijay for challenging what I was telling him as he had not won a skin at that point. It was nice to have Kris there to back me up," said Bodenhamer.
Bend-area courses set for PacAm
Ten Central Oregon golf courses are all set to be a part of the 2005 Pacific Amateur, to be contested Oct. 1-6.
The tournament drew 674 players from 34 states last year. The field was divided into 16 flights, featuring divisions for men, seniors, super seniors and women.
The courses in and around Bend, Ore., on tap to be used in 2005 are Aspen Lakes, the Ridge Course at Eagle Crest, the Resort Course at Eagle Crest, Lost Tracks, Meadow Lakes, River's Edge, the Meadows Course at Sunriver, the Woodlands Course at Sunriver and Widgi Creek.
The top four players in each flight advance to the finals at the Crosswater Club at Sunriver.
More information and registration is available by calling 1-888-425-3976 or by visiting www.pacamgolf.com. Each player will play three rounds, each on a different course. Entry fee is $450, or $460 by credit card. Greg Nieto of Chico, Calif., was the winner last year, the eighth year of the tournament.
PNGA loses volunteer leader
 The Pacific Northwest Golf Association lost one its finest volunteers when Dr. James Allison died of heart failure on May 24.
Allison, who retired to Sequim, Wash., and was a member at Sunland Golf & Country Club, played a leading role in establishing the Evans Scholarship Program in Washington and its fund-raising tournament, the Evans Cup of Washington.
He was the founder of the Evans Cup of Washington and its chairman from 1992 to 1999. He was a director for the Western Golf Association since 1991 in helping the Evans Scholarship program in the state.
The former member at Broadmoor Golf Club in Seattle spent 20 years as a club representative to the PNGA, and 10 years as a director of the PNGA. He was the PNGA Foundation president from 1989 to 1991.
He also was a director with the Washington State Golf Association from 1992 to 1999.
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