Jones Cup: Flopping to the title

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - No matter which foursome you followed Friday

afternoon on a perfect day in Newport Beach, you witnessed golf played as

well as (or even better than) the seniors in the Toshiba Senior Classic.

Members of the Senior PGA Tour struggle on the greens at Newport Beach

Country Club just like the Great Eight experienced in the inaugural Jones

Cup, a highly competitive men’s pro-am field that exhilarated two

galleries in a better-ball gross format and ended with dramatics that

would make ESPN envious.

After python putts and chip-ins for birdie by Mesa Verde Country Club

head professional Tom Sargent and Newport Beach host and head pro Paul

Hahn, it came down to, of all things, a flop shot at the 18th green.

It was Master Sargent at the controls.

With Sargent’s ball buried deep in the right rough at 18, and a

subsequent check by rules official Jerry Anderson to see if it was

embedded and possibly stepped on by a member of the gallery, the

53-year-old Mesa Verde pro, talk about flop, pulled a rabbit out of the

hat.

Tied with Newport Beach at 1-under heading to 18, Mesa Verde needed

birdie to win, but Sargent’s second shot landed to the right of Newport

Beach’s remodeled 18th green, and, even after it bounced, lodged itself

firmly about a half-inch below the top of the thick grass.”I thought

about picking it up and moving it (for a better lie), but there were way

too many people watching,” Sargent quipped, after executing one of golf’s

toughest shots to near perfection, flopping onto the edge of the green

and rolling two feet to the flag, setting up a birdie putt as Mesa Verde

won a thriller before an estimated 300 fans.

“Actually, there was a lady sitting in a golf cart across the green,

and, before I made the shot, I had visions of (getting too much club and)

drilling her right between the eyes.”

In a do-or-die situation, Sargent turned to his caddie and son, Luke,

and offered him the 57-percent lob wedge to try himself. Sargent laughed.

Then he turned and launched a difficult shot in textbook style with all

eyes focusing on him like a real pro in a clinic.

“You open up and it’s just like a bunker shot, just with more prayer,”

added Sargent, whose miracle flop shot secured the perpetual Jones Cup

trophy for Mesa Verde, which also featured men’s club champion Pete

Daley.

Daley, who saved par for his team with a big up and down on No. 9,

helped Mesa Verde finish at 2-under 69 for a one-stroke victory over

Newport Beach, which had three birdies by Hahn and men’s club champion

Bob Kraft. NBCC made bogey on the next hole after two of its birdies.

Daley was also there for Mesa Verde on 17 coming down the stretch,

hitting the green and two-putting from 15 feet for par as Sargent was

scrambling.

“It was really a gas,” Hahn said. “I felt my competitive juices coming

back. It’s been years (since I’ve played competitively). This is not a

big tournament, but it’s competitive.”

Two strokes off the lead and finishing at even-par 71 was Santa Ana

Country Club with head pro Mike Reehl and men’s club champion Chris

Veitch, while Big Canyon Country Club ended at 1-over 72 with head pro

Kelly Manos and men’s club champion Steve Collins.

“There’s no tomorrow and no second place,” said Sargent, who hired and

groomed Manos at Yorba Linda Country Club a decade ago, giving the

34-year-old Big Canyon head pro his start in the business.

As Sargent hoisted the Jones Cup trophy, he said: “I taught Kelly

Manos everything he knows, but I didn’t teach him everything I know.”

While Sargent isn’t a regular on the Southern California PGA circuit

and rarely plays in competitive tournaments, he said it was fun to

compete and rub elbows with his Newport-Mesa community golf peers.

Before the must-see finishing hole, Sargent drained a 60-foot birdie

putt on No. 2 and a 45-footer on No. 16, which tied Newport Beach for the

Jones Cup lead in a tightly contested better-ball pro-am.

“We’re a big-play team,” Sargent said with a laugh. “We go for the

three-run home runs and 60-yard touchdowns.”

The recently wed Hahn, with a lot of local knowledge but also the

home-course pressure from members in the gallery, chipped in for birdie

from 30 feet on No. 9 and followed it up with a little dance.

Then, on 11, Hahn sank a 40-foot birdie putt and performed another

jig, this time jumping in the air with a scissors kick, then pumping his

fist once his feet touched back down on the earth.

“One of my members came up to me and said, ‘The weight of the club

rests on you today,”’ said Hahn, whose biggest moment actually came from

the hilly rough on 17, Newport Beach’s signature hole, to save par in

scrambling, yet spectacular, fashion.

Hahn was long and left off the tee at 17. Ironically, while walking up

the 16th fairway, he noticed an NBCC member on the same hill and staring

at the threatening, two-tiered green below. Hahn wanted no part of that

shot, he said to himself, but wound up there, anyhow.

“I just happen to look up and see my member over there, and he (also)

hit up close to the green,” said Hahn, who followed up his chip with a

6-foot putt for par, as Newport Beach remained tied with Mesa Verde.

Unbeknownst to Hahn, Sargent birdied 16 in the foursome behind him to

tie the score. Newport Beach teed off on 17 with a one-shot lead.

As finishes go, the inaugural Jones Cup wrote itself with a script few

could have made up. And, as a setting, featured the brand new 18th hole,

which, from the fairway bunkers, has an elevated, 5,500-square foot green

and large mounds behind it for what Anderson, the NBCC President, calls

“flash.”

Club officials said it would bring new and exciting challenges to the

18th green. Sargent proved them right.

Moreover, for Mesa Verde, the 60-year-old Daley who didn’t start

playing golf until age 41, has never taken a lesson in his life, yet now

is on top of the Newport-Mesa golf community.

Prior to the first Jones Cup, Daley had played Newport Beach only a

handful of times in his life. But Thursday, after a round at Santa Ana

Country Club, Daley teed it up for four holes at Newport Beach with

former Angels pitcher and NBCC member Jim Abbott.

For Newport Beach, Kraft made birdie on No. 6, the toughest hole on

the golf course this year for the seniors in the Toshiba Classic. Then

Kraft saved par for his team on No. 14 with a clutch, 4-foot putt to keep

Newport Beach at 1-under and still in the lead.

Santa Ana played consistent par and had its birdie chances, but missed

three birdie tries on the front nine and also settled for par on 17 and

18 after sticking it close.

“We were on edges ... if we sink a few of those, we’re right there,”

Reehl said. “We scrambled a little bit today, but it was fun.”

Veitch, a four-time Santa Ana men’s club champion, made birdie at 15,

and, throughout the entertaining round, displayed beautiful iron play.

Manos, the 1996 Southern California PGA section champion and the

youngest player in the Jones Cup by 12 years, sank a birdie at No. 3 to

put Big Canyon in a tie for the lead, then he narrowly missed a birdie

putt on No. 4. Big Canyon, however, bogeyed 5 and 8, then started the

back nine with a bogey at 10.

Collins, the five-time Big Canyon men’s champion, drained a 25-foot

birdie putt on 18 from the edge of the green.

“I think seeing the number of people here today tells how successful

the event is, or what it will become,” Manos said. “Any time you bring

the golf community together is great.”

The Jones Cup is the new men’s competition for locals only in the

Fletcher Jones Motorcars/Daily Pilot Club Championship Series, which

started the Tea Cup Classic for women in 1997. The series is designed to

bring the golf community closer together and crown a Daily Pilot

champion.