Golf: Daley, Lane early Jones Cup candidates

Richard Dunn

Senior division sensation Pete Daley of Mesa Verde Country Club and

first-time Big Canyon Country Club men’s club champion Danny Lane are the

first two players to throw their hat in the ring for the third annual

Jones Cup next summer.

Daley, 61, captured his fourth straight club championship and

continued to show he’s only getting better with age, while Lane has been

a top player at Big Canyon for several years and won the 2001 title over

two former champions -- runner-up Steve Collins and third-place Charlie

McLaughlin, who won the 1999 and ’98 titles, respectively.

Collins played in the inaugural Jones Cup with then-head golf

professional Kelly Manos. Danny Bibb and Alan Drobka are Big Canyon’s

all-time leaders with six titles each.

Ron Maggard, the 2000 Big Canyon champion who won Jones Cup II with

Director of Golf Bob Lovejoy last summer, was unable to defend his title

this year because he was stuck out of town following the Sept. 11

terrorist attacks.

Lane shot 75-75-81-71--302 to win the 2001 title by three strokes over

Collins. McLaughlin and Steve Obradovich each shot 306.

Daley is golf’s ultimate late bloomer: He didn’t start playing until

he was 41 and has never taken a lesson in his life.

To put Daley’s run in perspective, no Mesa Verde member has won more

than two men’s club titles in a row since the club opened in 1959.

Daley won his first big championship in 1997, when he captured Mesa

Verde’s senior club title. But since 1998 he has won the regular

three-round stroke-play men’s club championship every year, including

this year when he beat Steve Rhorer in a two-hole playoff.

Daley, whose championship scores were unavailable, and Rhorer were

tied after the 54-hole event, which was played in late summer. On hole

No. 2 of the playoff, Daley sank a four-foot putt to save par and win his

fourth consecutive title, claiming his special parking space at the club

for one more year and earning the all-important local invitation to Jones

Cup III in 2002.

Daley and Mesa Verde head pro Tom Sargent won the inaugural Jones Cup

at Newport Beach Country Club in 1999, and the two teamed again this year

in Jones Cup II at Santa Ana Country Club.

Clyde Sarver is Mesa Verde’s all-time men’s club champion with five

titles (1962-63, ‘71, ’73 and ‘77).

The Jones Cup, a men’s pro-am launched by this sports section in 1999,

is played under the auspices of the Fletcher Jones Motorcars/Daily Pilot

Club Championship Series. Each club is responsible for selecting its two

players in the event, as long as it’s one staff member and one amateur

member.

The original concept of the event was to include from each club the

head pro and men’s club champion from the four private clubs in the Daily

Pilot circulation.

Santa Ana CC and Newport Beach CC hold men’s club championships in

May.