Year in review: World of Golf 2021

I keep pulling pages off my calendar and there aren’t a whole lot of them left for 2021. As the year enters its final week, we will continue with our year in review from the perspective of the world of golf. This week we’ll take a look at the Lake County golfing scene as it relates to the Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit, high school golf, junior golf, area club champions, golf course clubhouses, and a couple of talented individuals of note.

The Lake County Amateur Golf Circuit concluded its 28th season of operation in late October. There were nine open events on the calendar to go along with a senior tournament and two junior tourneys. If there were to be a central theme for the LCAGC in 2021, simply put it would have to be the year of Billy Witt. In the first 27 years of the Lake County Circuit, only two golfers, Juan Lopez and John Berry, have been atop the year end standings for the On the Links golfer of the year and senior golfer of the year. Berry won those two honors 17 years apart in 1995 and then 2012 and 2013, while Lopez, an eight time golfer of the year recipient, captured his final golfer of the year plaque in 2016 and was the senior golfer of the year last year in 2020. Witt did what was once thought unthinkable by winning both honors in the same season.

Billy Witt, the longtime Hidden Valley Lake Golf

Course superintendent, turned 50 and took advantage of not only playing in both flights, but dominating them. He won six times in championship flight tournaments, coming atop the standings in the One Man, the Partners Scramble, the Lake County Open, the Lake County Amateur, the Alternate Shot, and the TOC. He won those six events in the senior division as well as the Senior Three Man and the Senior Better Ball. He was most impressive at the Amateur at Adams Springs Golf Course on Cobb Mountain where he shot 67-69 to finish 13 strokes ahead of runner-up Dylan Harrison of Mount Hannah. Without a doubt, 2021 was the year of Billy Witt on the Lake County Circuit.

In other circuit divisions, Peter Wotherspoon of Buckingham won his third On the Links net golfer of the year crown while Rick Easter of Lakeport finished atop the standings as the senior net golfer of the year. Both Wotherspoon and Easter won their flights by exactly one shot. At any time during the year had they missed a short putt or hit a ball into the water, the story would have been far different for either one of them. Instead they achieved when others faltered and the end result was a season to remember for Peter Wotherspoon and Rick Easter. Individually, 77-year-old Tom Salie of Kelseyville won the net flight of the Lake County Amateur in August while Laura Silva became the first female golfer to win on the

LCAGC when she was atop the leader board at the Lake County Senior net amateur in June.

On the club scene, Barry Silva won the Hidden Valley Lake club championship. Fred Lopez was their senior club champ, Tim Stegelvik was the super senior club champ, Austin Pritchard was the junior champ, and Teresa Sand was the women’s club champ. Matt Wotherspoon was Buckingham’s club champion. Juan Lopez was the senior champ, Terri Miller was the women’s club champ, and Becky Allan was the women’s net club champ. Jerry Pendleton was the club champion at Adams Springs.

Sid Wagner won the senior club championship there. Diane Henderson won the women’s championship, and Joan Morrell was the women’s net titlist.

High school golf returned to California in 2021… sort of. After being cancelled because of the pandemic in 2020, just four of the 14 leagues in the North Coast Section had golf seasons. One of the four was the Coastal Mountain Conference’s South Division which includes county schools Middletown High School and Kelseyville High School. Clear Lake High School, a member of the CMC North didn’t have a league to play in, so the CMC South invited CLHS to compete alongside the South schools for one season. Middletown won the league title on the last day of the season over a young and talented St. Helena High

School team. It was their first CMC title since 1998. Senior Austin Pritchard of MHS was the league champ and most valuable player. Cory Holt of Kelseyville

HS, a senior, was all-conference and was the CMC’s second top notch golfer of note. He is currently on the golf team at Sierra College in Roseville. Nathon Lopez of Clear Lake, a junior, was also all-conference in his new league. There were no playoffs for golf last spring, so the Middletown High School team along with Holt and Lopez missed out on the NCS post season. A hearty thanks to Hidden Valley Lake and Adams Springs for hosting two conference matches last year, as well as Buckingham for welcoming the CMC South Division.

Like the local high school linksters, Matt Wotherspoon, a four time all-conference golfer at Kelseyville High School, didn’t have a sophomore season at top ranked Cypress College, a two-year college, in the spring of 2021. This autumn Wotherspoon matriculated to California State University San Bernardino, a highly regarded NCAA Division II program. He played in all four 54 hole tournaments this past fall at CSUSB and was an impact player. He also qualified into the NCGA Amateur this summer as well as the Golf Coaches of America Summer Series. Matt has been able to compete at such highly regarded courses as Spyglass Hill, Bayonet and Blackhorse at Ford Ord, La Costa, Indian Wells, and PGA West.

He most recently had high finishes in the PGA Club Champions Invitational as well as the long running Coronado City Amateur.

Riley Adams was another past all-CMC golfer while attending Middletown High School. Now a 23-year-old, Riley had a very good 2021 on two fronts. He was named Taylor Made’s merchandiser of the year for his sales of Taylor Made clubs. You could visit his tent at Hidden Valley Lake’s range as well as other courses throughout the west coast. He has also been active on the Golden State Tour, a mini-tour that has been in existence for close to 50 years. (I know because I once competed on the GST against the likes of Scott McCarron, Kevin Sutherland, and Esteban Toledo before they made it onto the PGA Tour and now the Champions Tour.) Riley recently cashed a check on the GST while shooting a final round 67 at Temecula Creek.

Lake County still has just three golf courses, namely Adams Springs, Buckingham, and Hidden Valley Lake. There seems little chance that Black Rock (Hobergs), Clear

Lake Riviera, and Langtry will ever return to playable form. In February, Adams Springs Golf Course opened their brand new state of the art clubhouse that holds a pro shop, restaurant, and full bar. It is truly a state of the art building that reminds one much more of Lake Tahoe than Lake County.

Next week: What the future of golf holds for 2022.