Surprise, surprise...
Cal golf improved from unwanted to NCAA champions
oaklandtribune.com
Tuesday, June 08, 2004 - THEY DON'T HAVE a course on campus. They dropped the sport 25 years ago. So how did Cal, Protest Central, UC Berserkeley, win the NCAA golf championship? Maybe we run that question through the computer at Livermore Lab. Or maybe we just ask the man behind the miracle, head coach Steve Desimone.
He was a basketball player back in the late'60s. "Very small time," said Desimone. "My greatest claim is chasing Russ Critchfield around in practice." His greatest claim, in truth, was helping Arroyo High of San Lorenzo upset McClymonds before Desimone got to the university. But either way, he was a hoops guy who didn't know a backswing from a swing in the backyard.
Then he did a couple of years in the Navy. In Hawaii. When you're protecting the country, you can't spend all your time surfing or drinking mai tais. Desimone started playing. "A lot," he recalled. "I turned into a serious golfer."
That he turned Cal golf into a serious program, into the team that with the help of two seniors who hit the books and also hit 5-iron draws, Scott Carlyle and
Peter Tomasulo, is a bit remarkable.
College golf is supposed to belong to schools such as Oklahoma State, Florida, Wake Forest, BYU and Georgia Tech, schools that through the years sent to the pros players such as Charles Howell, Matt Kuchar, David Duval, Johnny Miller and Andy Miller. The Cal guys didn't go on Tour, they went to graduate school.
But when the 107th NCAA Division I men's championship ended Friday at The Cascades, a killer of a course in Hot Springs, Va., that Sam Snead used to represent, there were the Golden Bears in first, six strokes ahead of UCLA. And in third was Arizona, giving the Pac-10 win, place and show.
All this despite former athletic director Dave Maggard, who, having never picked up a club himself, didn't think a golf team was necessary and in 1979 eliminated that sport along with volleyball and wrestling.
Desimone, then coaching basketball and teaching at College Prep in Oakland, was a frequent golf partner of Frank Brunk, the onetime Cal football star, at Orinda Country Club. They talked. Desimone acted. Golf became a club sport in 1980 and an intercollegiate sport -- against Maggard's wishes -- in the fall of 1982.
"Frank has been the patriarch of the program," said Desimone. "I can't tell you what he has done for Cal and done for me."
Desimone, the Cal alum, began by calling Bud Finger, the Stanford coach. You know, the school that does have its own course. The school where through the years, Bob Rosburg, Tom Watson, Casey Martin, Notah Begay III and that kid named Woods would play. "Bud spent three hours with me," said Desimone, "and told me there was no reason Cal couldn't compete."
The Bears play in Orinda, over the hill from Berkeley, and Richmond Country Club, up the road. They practice at Richmond, which has the space Orinda doesn't. "We couldn't do it without either of them," said the 55-year-old Desimone. "We owe part of our trophy to them."
Northern California is golf country, but then again it isn't golf country. The Raiders and Niners get our attention. The Giants and A's get the pub. Even Tiger was a bit off the radar at Stanford. A Cal golfer practically would have to hit a ball over the Campanile before anyone even knew how to pronounce his name.
"I chastise the media," said Desimone. "Our team has been playing well since last fall. Since 1990, we've been in 11 NCAA regionals, five NCAA tournaments. The year, 1995, Stanford with Woods finished second, we were fifth. We've had seven All-Americans, seven All-American scholars."
One of those is Tomasulo, who has a 3.96 grade point average and a sub-72 stroke average. Carlyle, who shot a 61 a few weeks ago, also is an academic star.
Tomasulo and teammate Jeff Hood finished tied for 10th in the NCAAs with 2-over-par 282s, a considerable distance behind the remarkable 13 under by Ryan Moore of UNLV, but five shots better than Casey Wittenberg of Oklahoma State, who was low amateur in this year's Masters. Michael Wilson of Cal was tied for 33rd at 290, Carlyle tied for 50th at 295.
"We knew two years ago this team was going to be good," said Desimone. "I told the kids before the last day if we played a great round, we'd win the national championship. And lo and behold, here we are."
If only Dave Maggard could see them now.
Art Spander has earned a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He can be reached at typoes@aol.com . |
