Win streak ends for Big Canyon

Rick Devereux

The streak ends.

The members of Big Canyon Country Club have won the Jones Cup the

past three years. The host members of Newport Beach Country Club put

an end to Big Canyon’s power hold on the top community golf prize by

shooting a 5-under-par 66. Big Canyon and Santa Ana Country Club both

finished at 2-under, and Mesa Verde Country Club finished at 1-under.

The only other time Big Canyon did not win the Jones Cup was in

2000, the inaugural year of the event and also held at Newport Beach

Country Club. Since then the site has rotated to the different venues

and Big Canyon was victorious every time. But Wednesday marked the

return to Newport Beach and halted the hopes of Big Canyon’s Director

of Golf Bob Lovejoy of claiming a title on each course.

“I really wanted to win at each club,” Lovejoy said after the

round. “The only one I haven’t won on is this one.”

The Jones Cup had a revised format this year, pitting the golf

pro, men’s champion, senior champion and women’s champion of each

club in a best-ball competition where the best two scores on each

hole are counted.

Lovejoy teamed with men’s champion Will Tipton (the two won Jones

Cup IV at Mesa Verde last year), senior champion Steve Collins and

women’s champion Sally Holstein.

The new scoring system, plus the fact that the various teams

sported matching shirts, created a more relaxed atmosphere.

“I love it,” Holstein said. “Instead of playing head-to-head and

every stroke counting [like in the former Tea Cup Classic], this is

great.”

Collins said, “It’s fun to see the clubs in the different colors.

I think it’s great for the community and is really a lot of fun to

play in.”

While it was more relaxed, the golfers were still focused on

winning.

Collins made a birdie on the first hole to put the team at

1-under, and when no one could do better than par on the second,

Lovejoy realized one goal was gone.

“I guess we won’t birdie every hole,” he told Tipton.

Collins also had high hopes for the start of the tournament.

“I would have liked to start birdie-birdie, but I’ll take

birdie-tap-in,” he said.

Lovejoy had the team thinking victory after a 30-foot birdie putt

on the par-5 No. 3 slowly rolled to its destination.

That putt would be one of the few putts the Big Canyon team was

able to correctly gauge, while most birdie and even a few par

attempts were inches off.

After three pars, including a beautiful chip from Lovejoy on the

fifth hole to get a tap-in, No. 7 signified a turn of events for the

foursome.

Tipton birdied the hole, but Lovejoy lost his ball when his

approach shot got stuck in a palm tree.

“I’ve never had that happen to me before,” Lovejoy said. “I didn’t

think [the shot] would get up that quick.”

Holstein and Collins bogeyed the hole to keep the team at 2-under,

but it seemed like the swings got a little stiffer and the tension

mounted slightly, especially since the scores of the other clubs

showed all four within two shots of each other.

Lovejoy parred the eighth hole, but the other three shot bogeys to

drop them to 1-under. The group stayed at that position until the

12th hole, when Lovejoy again was the lone par shooter. Tipton had a

birdie putt break right and his par attempt lipped out, and Collins’

par putt broke left of the hole, dropping the team to even par for

the day.

Collins birdied the 15th and Holstein birdied the 16th to drop Big Canyon to 2-under, but Newport had made a run on the last three holes

to improve to 5-under.

But the missed opportunities lingered after the tournament was

complete.

“The putts didn’t fall today,” Tipton said. “We didn’t make the

birdie putts when we needed to and Newport turned it on at the end to

run away from everyone.”