Eight locals set to compete in SCGA 4-Ball tournament
By Robert Gautney
Contributing columnist
Bakersfield Country Club will be a host to many of Southern California's best amateur golfers on Monday and Tuesday in the Southern California Golf Association's 21st 4-Ball Championship.
Fifty-two teams will compete over 36 holes to determine the best tandem in Southern California. The 4-Ball format is a better-ball event in which each player plays his own ball and they take the best of the two scores. Players must have an index of 5.4 or less. There were five qualifying sites to determine the field for the championship.
The defending champions -- Jason Bittick and Harry Rudolph III, won at The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Sante Fe last year, but they will not be back to defend their crown.
Rudolph III has turned professional and Bittick chose not to compete with a new partner, but there are a host of former champions in the field.
Kevin Marsh of Henderson, Nev., won back-to-back in 2008-09 with George Downing and this year he will team with John Pate from Santa Barbara, who has won many SCGA events. Downing is not competing.
David Bartman of Los Angeles and Robert Funk from Canyon Lake won in 2006 and Scott Crenshaw of Pasadena and Jeffrey Payne from Santa Ana won in 2003.
Bakersfield will be represented well as eight local players will be competing led by the duo of Fresno State senior Bhavik Patel and UCLA sophomore Manav Shah. Patel, who won the California State Amateur in June and Shah, who was the runner-up in the SCGA Amateur in July, received a special exemption to compete.
Patel and Shah will play in the first round with Bakersfield's D.J. Fernando and Greg Lopez with an 8:40 a.m. start.
Lopez lives in Irvine but the two were teammates at CSUB.
Fernando is a former Kern County Amateur champion (2002) who just recently finished second in that tournament when he lost in a playoff to Scott LaBare and Lopez is a former Bakersfield City Amateur champion.
LaBare will be playing with Kevin Anderson from Los Angeles while the teams of Jeff Campbell/Jeff Acebedo and Bryan Lynn/Bill Frankhouser, Jr., will give Bakersfield a chance for its third champion in this event. All advanced into the championship through qualifying at either Dove Canyon CC or Rustic Canyon CC in Moorpark.
Bakersfield's Dale Keene and Dan Hogan won at San Diego CC in 1999 and Tyler Hurst and Bryan Hogan (Dan's son) won in 2007 at Industry Hills GC.
Monday's tee times will be from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. and the public is invited out to watch.
There is no admission cgharge. Teams will be repaired according to score for the final round with the leaders teeing off in the last group around 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Most CommentedMost Popular
Measure G is not, technically, a ban on medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives in unincorporated Kern County. Practically, it comes very close to being one.
Q: Why are "motorized scooters" (two-wheeled, no seat) allowed on the streets? To my knowledge, they are not licensed, tagged, insured. They have NO lights, horns or other safety items.
The Kern County Republican Central Committee is set to decide Monday whether to revoke the charter of a local black Republicans group for endorsing a Democrat for elected office.
Many of the United Farm Workers of America's leaders and foot soldiers remain with the organization decades after its founding 50 years ago, but some have transitioned to other positions in business, government and advocacy.
A Bakersfield mother of two who took up competitive cycling nine months ago after an injury ended her marathoning career died Sunday while competing in a bicycle race outside Yosemite National Park.
A prostitution sting netted 15 arrests Wednesday. Three female Bakersfield Police officers and one female investigator for the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) pretended to be prostitutes at a motel located near three ABC licensed establishments, according to an ABC news release.
A Bakersfield police officer shot and killed a man who was armed with a gun in a northwest Bakersfield apartment Monday morning.
Two sisters were arrested on suspicion of breaking into a business with five children in tow Saturday night.