Golf: A shining spotlight for Big Canyon

Richard Dunn

It was a near-perfect setting with Big Canyon Country Club hosting

its most prestigious golf championship ever.

In a relaxed environment with an intimate feel along the front of the

clubhouse, Big Canyon showed the United States Golf Association what

Dennis Harwood and other club members have believed for years.

That Big Canyon, despite its lofty reputation as Orange County’s most

exclusive private club and a place where members prefer anonymity, can

handle the national spotlight and provide the USGA with an even bigger

championship, like the U.S. Men’s Amateur or U.S. Junior Amateur.

While Big Canyon is not equipped to host 10,000 people, it is ideal

for 500 or less.

In addition to thwarting a public relations disaster with last week’s

damaged greens caused by vandals, USGA and Big Canyon officials operated

the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship like it was the most important

golf event on the planet.

“It may not get the galleries or television (coverage), but the USGA

is going to run this (championship) just like the U.S. Open,” said

Harwood, the event’s co-chairman with Lee Merrick.

Harwood, a Big Canyon member since the equity-owned club opened its

doors in 1971, was part of a group that felt Big Canyon would be better

served hosting a high-profile event, instead of lowering its shades to

the public or any outside attention.

“We’ve kind of kept the club a secret,” Harwood said, “but to

establish it as one of the finest (golf courses), you have to have the

best play it (and) you need to host an event.”

Tiger Woods has been an honorary member since 1992 and has been known

to give impromptu golf clinics to Big Canyon members. But that was

hush-hush outside of the club’s confines, until Harwood and the USGA

convinced enough members it was OK to publicize such a fact.

Prior to Sunday when Ellen Port of St. Louis, Mo., defeated Anna

Schultz in the championship match, the club had played host to only three

non-club tournaments: A qualifying round for the 1987 U.S. Amateur, the

1990 Big West Conference Championship and 1996 Pac-10 Conference

Championship (won by Stanford’s Woods, who shot a course-record 61 in the

first round).

Big Canyon has been the antithesis of a media-conscious golf club. For

example: There were no pre-event news releases or publicity pieces

regarding the ’96 Pac-10 Championships featuring the then-Stanford

sophomore phenom, who would play his last competitive round of golf in

Orange County. There were no phone calls from Big Canyon to get reporters

out for coverage.

It was as if Big Canyon didn’t want anybody to know about it, for

fear, perhaps, of too much outside traffic trampling on the grounds.

But members like Harwood and Merrick worked hard to change Big

Canyon’s image slightly and lobbied to host the 2000 U.S. Women’s

Mid-Amateur, which proved successful on all accounts, from the players

and their families to the club members, from the USGA to the local golf

community.

Aside from vandals ruining three greens during off hours before the

event, it was a great championship played on a great golf course.

“You need good iron shots and good course management here. You have to

do that on this golf course,” said Port, the stroke-play medalist and

match-play champion who knocked out local favorite Marianne Towersey

(Santa Ana Country Club) in the Round of 16.

Port, who captured her third U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur title following

victories in 1995 and ‘96, became the first three-time winner in the

championship’s 14-year history. She also became only the second medalist

to win the match-play championship. Carol Semple Thompson of Sewickley,

Pa., pulled off the rare double at Allegheny Country Club in 1990.

Harwood, a Newport Harbor High basketball player in the 1950s with

Denny Fitzpatrick, worked for the USGA as a rules official in the early

1990s. In 1992, he began negotiating with the USGA to hold an event at

Big Canyon.

But Harwood first had to convince eight other board members at the

club that it would be a good thing. He was right.

Harwood also said that 21 of the top 50 women amateurs in the world,

including college players, played in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur,

according to Golf Week’s rankings.

The 2001 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship will be played at Fox

Run Golf Club in Eureka, Mo. In 2002, Eugene Country Club in Eugene,

Ore., will be the host site.

The field of women (25 and over) was interesting in the USGA

championship at Big Canyon.

There was a doctor (Sally Krueger of San Francisco), a lawyer (Pamela

Palmieri of Granite Bay, Calif.), a nurse (Judith Allan Kryrinis of

Toronto, Canada), an analytical chemist (Carolyn Klecker of Eden Prairie,

Minn.) and a chemistry professor at UC Berkeley (Cynthia Friend of Palo

Alto).

Debbie Dahmer of Escondido is a disc jockey and caddies on the

celebrity tour and on the PGA Tour for celebrity pro-ams.

There were several teachers and coaches in the field, including Port,

a high school physical education teacher who coaches boys golf and girls

field hockey in St. Louis.

Towersey is a golf coach at Newport Harbor High.

Port earned medalist honors after shooting 147 (72-75) on the

5,972-yard, par-72 layout during stroke play. But Towersey still holds

the women’s course record at Big Canyon with a 69, accomplished April 25

while playing as a guest.

Richard Dunn’s golf column appears every Thursday.