Sargent heads to farther reaches

BRYCE ALDERTON

Rack up another honor for Mesa Verde Country Club head professional

Tom Sargent.

The PGA National Golf Professional of the Year in 1997 was elected to a three-year term as director of a three-district area

encompassing Southern and Northern California, along with Hawaii,

prior to attending an annual PGA conference in San Antonio in

November.

Sargent, who has taught more than 30 national junior

All-Americans, will represent 3,500 PGA members (teaching pros) and

apprentices between the three sections. Sargent has earned Teacher of

the Year for the PGA’s Southern California section three times.

His current and former students include several PGA Tour players

such as Bob May and LPGA pro Kellie Booth, who won the 1993 United

States Golf Association’s Girls Junior Amateur title held at Mesa

Verde.

He came to Mesa Verde in 1995, four years after earning Golf

Professional of the Year for the Southern California section, where

he served as section president from 1993-95.

Jerry Anderson, general manager at Newport Beach Country Club,

along with former Southern California Golf Association President Dirk

Kingma, were elected to serve on the SCPGA’s Board of Directors.

Anderson, a former SCPGA president, and Kingma replace Sargent and

Big Canyon’s Director of Golf Bob Lovejoy, whose terms on the board

each expired.

*

Construction to two holes and the driving range at Santa Ana

Country Club is complete and little did I know that one comment --

uttered back in August by the club’s head pro Geoff Cochrane -- of a

lake that fronts the par-4 seventh green would actually fulfill

itself to my displeasure.

He said the lake that fronts the green would surely come into

play.

While playing a round last month with Kirk Norton and Tim

DeCinces, neighbors in a Costa Mesa neighborhood, I took out a 3-wood

for my second shot -- a nice poke that would have to clear an edge of

the water to make the green.

I was already a bit peeved about hitting a tee shot that surely

tore up more blades of grass than necessary, so I set up to the ball

with the determination to keep my head down and swing smoothly.

Mission accomplished, I thought.

The ball sailed off the club crisply, not too high or too low.

I shouldn’t have peeked up.

The ball began to curve slightly to the left, but I couldn’t see

where it hit the ground because the fairway dipped slightly near the

front of the green.

I held my breath and drove the cart toward the green, nervously

awaiting the fate of that little white ball.

Turns out I didn’t have to wait too long. DeCinces -- standing

near the edge of the lake -- gave the bad news. My ball had rolled in

the water.

“You should be able to find it since it wasn’t going that fast,”

DeCinces.

He was right.

I was able to use an iron to scoop up the ball and it was time for

my fourth shot.

Yikes. But that is the way golf goes.

I should have listened to you, Geoff. The two holes, Nos. 3 and 7,

look great with the reworked bunkering and the range now has five

target greens to shoot for.

*

Jason Cassidy, last spring’s Golden West League individual boys

golf champion as an Estancia High senior, will transfer from

Saddleback College in Mission Viejo to Orange Coast for the upcoming

spring semester, which begins February 2. Estancia claimed last

season’s league crown.