Kelly Manos, Millennium Hall of Fame

Richard Dunn

Unlike most players, the competition got easier for Kelly Manos

once he finished playing local junior golf tournaments.

In fact, during one humbling experience, Manos was 16 and an all-league

high school golfer, when he lost by one stroke to a 5-year-old kid. His

name was Eldrick “Tiger” Woods.

While both have come a long way since their junior golf days together,

they still see each other at Big Canyon, where Manos has been the head

professional since May 1999 and Woods is an honorary member who tees it

up when he’s in town.

“I still like to needle Kelly about it, the fact he got beat by a

5-year-old,” Mesa Verde Country Club head pro Tom Sargent once said,

referring to the days in the early 1980s when Manos grew up playing with

Woods at Heartwell Golf Course in Long Beach.

Manos, who got his start in the business when Sargent hired him at Yorba

Linda Country Club in 1990, has carved his own niche in the golf world

during the past decade, including winning the 1996 Southern California

PGA sectional championship for club professionals and earning a

prestigious position at the most exclusive club in Orange County.

Manos, a former USC standout, doesn’t play as much as he used to with his

new set of responsibilities as head pro, but the 34-year-old Costa Mesa

resident is living a club pro’s dream.

“I don’t ever want to leave,” said Manos, hired at Big Canyon as a first

assistant to Bob Lovejoy in February 1995, after five years at Yorba

Linda.

Manos now spends more time in front of a computer screen, managing a

staff of 25, attending meetings and shuffling paperwork.

On the course, his club pro highlight was capturing the SCPGA sectional

title, which rewarded him with spots in three PGA Tour events in 1997 --

the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines and

the Nissan Open at Riviera, where Manos made the cut.

“That was the main thing as a club pro,” Manos said. “Don’t get me wrong,

I want to win. But realistically, as a club pro, you just want to play on

the weekend.”

Manos, who shot 73-71-73-73 at the ’97 Nissan Open and finished 70th,

played with Ed Dougherty and John Maginnes in the third round and Duffy

Waldorf in the final round. “It was cool,” said Manos.

Manos, who also played in the Nike Tour event at Moreno Valley in ‘97,

tried the mini-tour for one year after college, but found putting for

dough much tougher than hitting for show.

“They weren’t my better years, that’s for sure,” Manos said. “I think

I’ve become a better player since I’ve been in the (club) golf business.

There’s a lot of pressure making cuts and making putts for a living.

“When you have a job, there’s something to fall back on, so there’s not

as much stress. It’s easier to relax and you can just enjoy yourself out

there on the golf course.”

Manos, introduced to golf by the same person who taught him how to hunt

and fish, his grandfather, the late Virgil Kelly, made the Los Alamitos

High varsity golf team as a sophomore after trying out for the first

time. By the time he was a senior, Manos was playing No. 1 for the

Griffins.

“I didn’t play a whole lot of golf before I tried out,” said Manos, whose

relationship with Woods as a youth was highlighted in a recent Sports

Illustrated article.

“They played 52 weeks of the year together,” Earl Woods once said of

Manos and his famous son.

Following a successful prep career, Manos played golf at Cal State

Fullerton, but the Titans’ men’s golf program was dropped and Manos

transferred to USC, where he played for three years before joining the

mini-tour.

After realizing his nerves on the putting green weren’t fit for

paychecks, Manos went to work for a collection agency, before Sargent

rescued him and brought him into the club business.

“I don’t think Kelly was big enough to break arms and legs,” once quipped

Sargent, the head pro at Yorba Linda for 18 years, before landing at Mesa

Verde five years ago.

Manos, who replaced Lovejoy as head pro at Big Canyon when the latter was

promoted to Director of Golf, is the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot

Sports Hall of Fame.