THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP isn’t the only golf trophy up for grabs this week.
Closer to home, at Port Ludlow Golf Club, 128 junior boys golfers are competing through Friday in a bid to win the 58th Pacific Northwest Junior Boys Amateur Championship.
Best part of this championship? There’s no need to fly across country and deal with the transportation hassles associated with the PGA’s decision to host their major on a tiny island off the South Carolina coast.
This one is local and free and open to the public.
I’ll get back to the PGA Championship at the end of my column.
Spencer Weiss of Sammamish and Joe Fryer of Mukilteo were tied at 3-under par 69 after Monday’s first round on Ludlow’s Tide and Timber nines.
Weiss, a junior-to-be at Eastlake High School narrowly missed out on qualifying for the U.S. Amateur last week, losing in a three-hole playoff for the first-alternate spot to Kyle Cornett at Oakbrook Golf & Country Club in Lakewood.
He birdied his third hole, the 517-yard par-5 Timber No. 3 to get his round off to a good start, eventually posting five birdies and two bogies on the day.
Fryer, a 16-year-old who plays on the Kamiak High School team, posted six birdies and three bogies in the first round.
Stroke play continued Tuesday and single-elimination match play, with a Championship Flight of 32 players and additional flights of eight players, begins this morning continuing through Friday and the public is encouraged to attend.
Fred Couples won this tournament in his youth, and who knows, maybe one of these youngsters will rise to that level in their career?
I do know that shooting a 3-under on Tide and Timber is a pretty solid day for a golfer of any age.
100 holes benefit
Port Ludlow director of golf Vito DeSantis will embark on an ambitious gambit Tuesday, Aug. 21.
He plans to play 100 holes of golf in a benefit for Port Ludlow’s Seattle Children’s Hospital Guild.
The public can make a minimum pledge of $25 or spice things up by pledging different amounts for each par or bogey, birdie and eagle that DeSantis makes during his rounds.
Pledges can be doubled if DeSantis makes the 100-hole goal.
These donations will help fund uncompensated care at the hospital.
Jefferson and Clallam county children are big beneficiaries of this uncompensated care, I know from writing many news briefs on benefit events put on by other guilds on the North Olympic Peninsula.
DeSantis will be playing with a special person in mind, his niece who was diagnosed with lymphoma at age 12.
He talked about the impact of his visit to see her during treatment at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in a July 25 Peninsula Daily News feature by Jennifer Jackson.
You can read the full article at tinyurl.com/100Holes.
For more information about the golf marathon and dinner, call Claudia Avicola, 360-437-4124, or contact DeSantis at the Port Ludlow Golf Club, 751 Highland Drive, Port Ludlow 98365, or 360-437-8270.
Senior golf event
Registration is due Wednesday, Aug. 15, for the Olympic Peninsula Senior Games golf event at Peninsula Golf Club in Port Angeles, which will take place at noon on Friday, Aug. 24.
Registration fees are $20, plus $5 per senior games event, and there is a greens fee of $36 for nonmembers of Peninsula Golf Club.
Gold, silver, and bronze medals will be awarded to the first, second, and third place finishers in each event, by age group and gender.
For registration information, visit
tinyurl.com/OPGames or phone the games headquarters at the Port Angeles Senior Center at 360-457-7004.
Aloha tourney, luau
Cedars at Dungeness will hold an Aloha Tourney and Luau on Saturday, Aug. 18.
Cost is $100 for nonmembers, $70 for members and $57 for members with a cart lease.
Players will receive range balls, greens fees, use of cart, a tee prize, competition money and the luau meal after play.
Check-in is 11 a.m. with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start.
Valid handicaps are needed for the low and high divisions, and if there’s only one handicap teams will be placed in the Callaway Division.
Deadline to register is Sunday.
For more information, stop by the Cedars at Dungeness clubhouse or phone 360-683-6344.
JeffCo Amateur set
Golfers still have time to practice for the Jefferson County Amateur, set for Discovery Bay Golf Course near Port Townsend on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 18-19.
Entry is $125 and includes tee prizes, a continental breakfast each day, range balls, two competition rounds and a practice round.
Each entry contributes $20 to a prize fund for net divisions and a gross payout.
To sign up for the Jefferson County Amateur phone Discovery Bay at 360-385-0704.
And down the stretch . . .
Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, the home of this week’s fourth and final major, the PGA Championship, ends with two difficult holes.
In reality the whole course is difficult as Golf Digest’s “Panelists,” a collection of 1,100 golfers who rate the 100 Best Courses in the USA for the magazine, rated the Ocean Course as the toughest course in all of the land back in January.
How difficult? Well, the 223-yard par-3 No. 17 hole came to fame after brutalizing American and European golfers in the 1991 Ryder Cup.
The hole hasn’t gone soft in the meantime — no beer belly here.
Its a 223-yard shot straight over water with pot bunkers guarding the left-hand side of the green. Wind is a factor, as the hole is right on the Atlantic coast.
No. 18 isn’t much easier, a 501-yard par-4 which will make the pros choose whether to drive over fairway pot bunkers or attempt a pretty-much impossible 340-yard carry to safety.
Oh, and the fairway has been trimmed down to feed into those fairway bunkers.
Nice touch that, course-creator/torturer Pete Dye.
The green is surrounded on the left by an enormous sand area and a runoff area to the right.
Players do have one benefit on the course: they can ground their clubs and take practice swings if their ball lies in any sandy area on the course.
No Dustin Johnson-esque PGA Championship 2010 situations should arise from that decision.
Another benefit? It’s storm season out on the south Atlantic coast — a big one drenched many of Tuesday’s practice activities — which could lead to softer, more receptive and ultimately slower greens.
Scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast through next Wednesday.
TV coverage will begin on TNT at 10 a.m. Thursday and Friday and at 8 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, until KIRO-7 picks things up at 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.
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Golf columnist Michael Carman can be reached at 360-417-3527 or
pdngolf@gmail.com.
