Mesa Verde reaching far corners
Bryce Alderton
The golfing world’s spotlight shines brightest on Whistling Straits
in Haven, Wis., for the PGA Championship and Mesa Verde Country Club
head golf professional Tom Sargent is right there, working, so to
speak.
He won’t be playing golf. That comes Wednesday, when the golfing
beam, at least in Newport-Mesa, will illuminate Newport Beach Country
Club for the revamped Jones Cup.
Sargent, director for PGA sections in Southern and Northern
California, along with Hawaii, will team with Mesa Verde Country
Club’s best -- Akemi Khaiat (women’s club champion), Steve Rhorer
(senior club champion) and Dave Irwin (men’s club champion) to battle
foursomes from the three other private clubs in the area (Newport
Beach Country Club, Santa Ana Country Club and Big Canyon Country
Club) at 1 p.m. Wednesday.
Today, Sargent watches the show and Wednesday he will be part of
the spectacle.
Among Sargent’s duties at the PGA Championship include announcing
players names as they tee off on Nos. 1 and 10 and as they complete
rounds on both the ninth and 18th holes. Sargent will also escort
golfers from the course to the media center after their rounds.
In addition to handling his duties at the PGA, Sargent, the PGA
National Golf Professional of the Year in 1997, also escaped to a
nearby course in Kohler to hone his game for next week’s
championship.
Back pain has limited Sargent’s rounds in recent years, but he
said he felt fine after his latest one and looks forward to
Wednesday.
“If my back holds up, I will be ready,” said Sargent, who has
taught more than 30 junior All-Americans. “My back isn’t bothering me
as much, but it is still bothersome.”
Sargent said he has played “a little bit more this year” leading
into the new Jones Cup, a product of the best of the former men’s
Jones Cup and the ladies’ Tea Cup Classic. The former Jones Cup,
which began in 2000, featured a better ball of partners format
between, presumably, the men’s club champion and a golf staff
professional from each of the four clubs.
The Tea Cup Classic, which ran its course after seven years, was
an 18-hole, stroke-play format featuring the four ladies club
champions against one another. Santa Ana Country Club’s Marianne
Towersey won five of the seven Tea Cup Classic titles.
The melding of the two combines successful players from each club.
Mesa Verde’s team has its share of experience in the former Jones Cup
-- Sargent played in all four while Rhorer competed in 2003 -- and
Tea Cup Classic -- Khaiat played in the last two events, including
finishing second by two strokes to Towersey in last year’s event.
Khaiat, born in Tokyo, has claimed the last three Mesa Verde
Country Club women’s titles and was a co-captain on the Japanese
national team in 1998 when it competed in the World Amateur
championship in Santiago, Chile.
Rhorer not only tasted his share of golf on an international scale
in April’s senior masters at the Golf Resort at Indian Wells, but
emerged victorious.
Rhorer shot 6-under-par (74-74-66-68 -- 282) to win by one stroke
over Texan Joe Cadale in the invitational that included golfers ages
55 and older from Taiwan and Canada. Rhorer led by three strokes with
three holes left in the final round, but Cadale birdied Nos. 17 and
18 to put the heat on. Rhorer remained stable and parred both holes
for the victory.
“It’s probably my biggest win,” said Rhorer, who also won his
second Mesa Verde Country Club senior title in the spring.
Irwin’s victory in the men’s club championship last August
qualified him for this year’s Jones Cup and also moved him into a
trio of select company in Mesa Verde Country Club lore. Irwin joined
Rhorer and Pete Daley as the only golfers to win both men’s and
senior club titles at Mesa Verde Country Club in the same year.
Daley, with four men’s club titles, including four straight from
1998-2001, ranks second to Clyde Sarver’s five since the club opened
in 1959.
As of Wednesday, Mesa Verde hadn’t chosen a team color. When asked
earlier in the week, Sargent, who returns Monday, quipped, “Maybe
something like fuchsia.”
Fuchsia somewhat resembles red, which has signified scores for
Mesa Verde team members lately.
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