Jeff Coburn, a former UC Irvine standout,...

Jeff Coburn, a former UC Irvine standout, along with Newport Beach

resident Steve Jurgensen, both begin play today in the California

State Open championship at the Southern California Golf Association

Golf Course in Murrieta.

The tournament, which began in 1900, has included past champions

Walter Hagan, Jerry Barber, Gene Littler and two-time winner Dennis

Paulson, a former junior champion at Santa Ana Country Club who has

one PGA Tour victory to his credit.

Coburn was the Big West Conference Player of the Year as a UCI

senior in 2002 and shot 12-under-par 276 to finish in a three-way tie

for fourth place at last year’s championship, which attracts amateurs

and professionals, mainly from mini-tours and international PGA

circuits.

Both Jurgensen and Coburn competed on the Alex G. Spanos

California Tour, which ran from February through June. Jurgensen

finished 65th on the money list with $5,700 in earnings while Coburn

was 70th with $5,183.

This year’s California State Open field of 156 golfers includes

former United States Amateur champion Ricky Barnes, Peter Tomasulo, a

member of Cal’s NCAA men’s golf championship squad last spring, and

John Merrick, the 2003 Pac-10 individual champion.

The tournament runs through Saturday.

* Mike Lavery, a teammate of Coburn’s at UCI who won the 2003 Big

West individual title as a senior, is also steering through the

professional ranks. He has three weeks remaining on the National Golf

Association Hooters Tour, where he has made 13 cuts in 15 events with

four top 20 finishes. Lavery’s best finish is a tie for eighth at a

stop in Savannah Village at Monticello in McCormick, S.C., in April,

when he shot 7-under-par 281. Lavery’s 71.21 scoring average ranks

90th among 547 players on the tour.

* Ron Deerdon eagled the par-5 18th hole in a playoff on the Los

Lagos course at Costa Mesa Golf & Country Club, helping his team,

which included Butch Pope, Mike Pule and Bernie Plent, emerge

victorious in the annual Blackie’s By the Sea/Butch Ditmer Memorial

tournament Aug. 20.

The winners, along with the foursome of Jimmy Knost, Rhett Tucker,

Ron Lamberton and Terry Fell, each shot 5-under-par 67 after 18 holes

to force the playoff.

Sixty-four players, many of them with Newport-Mesa ties, competed

in a tournament honoring Ditmer, who died of a brain aneurism after

playing a round at Costa Mesa.

Corona del Mar High golf coach Mike Starkweather was part of the

foursome that shot 69 to finish fourth. Starkweather earned Closest

to the Pin honors on the par-3 7th.

* Noted golf course architect Casey O’Callaghan has moved his golf

course design business, Casey O’Callaghan Golf Course Design, Inc.,

to Newport Beach. O’Callaghan led the re-design of the clubhouse and

driving range at Mesa Verde Country Club, along with improvements to

the course at Santa Ana Country Club.