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Saturday, October 21, 2000
EMC leader KAANAPALI, Maui -- One thing's for sure. No one has a larger gallery in the EMC Kaanapali Classic than first-round leader Bruce Summerhays.
draws a crowd
Bruce Summerhays
has a lot of support at
the Kaanapali ClassicBy Bill Kwon
Star-Bulletin"We have 21 people here," said Summerhays, whose opening-round 66 yesterday gave him a one-stroke lead in the Senior PGA Tour event at the par-71 Kaanapali North Course.
The entourage includes his wife, Carolyn, and their eight children.
The oldest daughter, Shelly Savage, who's doing her medical residency in Provo, Utah, is caddying for him.
"We're on a five-caddy rotation right now," said Summerhays, who tied for second here in 1997. Another daughter caddied then.
If baseball is a game of inches, golf is a game of lucky bounces.
Looking for his first victory of the year, Summerhays credited "an all-time break" at the par-5 15th hole that saved his round.
He pull-hooked his second shot and thought it went out of bounds. His ball was safe, nestled on a narrow strip of grass between the road, which is OB, and the cart path.
"It's the best break of the tournament for anyone. You get one of those a year," Summerhays said. And he followed up with "the best chip shot I hit all year" for an 8-foot birdie putt.
Actually, he had two other good breaks, according to Summerhays. He hit a wrong club (a 6-iron instead of 7) and got away with a par at the testy 185-yard par-3 ninth hole.
Then at 11, another par 3, he sank a 40-foot birdie putt, the ball bouncing up before dropping back into the hole. It was only one of two birdies for the day at the 185-yard hole.
Breaks or no breaks, it was a bogey-free round for Summerhays, whose best showing this year was a third-place finish in the SBC Senior Open.
Five players were a stroke back at 67, including Dale Douglass, a familiar face at Kaanapali with two runner-up finishes, a third and a fourth.
Joining him were Joe Inman, who parred in after going 4 under after six holes with the only other birdie at No. 11, Dave Eichelberger and senior tour rookies Stewart Ginn and Chuck Moran. Moran's only previous visits to Hawaii were for refueling stops when he played several years on the Asian Tour.
Eichelberger had the day's most up-and-down round. He double-bogeyed 16 in playing the back nine first, then got it to 5 under and a brief share of the lead.
Ginn, an Aussie who could win the Steven Spielberg look-alike contest hands down, was happy with his round, considering the 10-25 mph trade winds with gusts up to 45 mph on two occasions. Those in the 78-player field who played the upper front nine later in the day ran into more difficulty.
After 10 years on the Japan PGA Tour where he got to know Hawaii's David Ishii well, Ginn enjoys the no-cut, three-round senior tour. "But these guys out here can play," he said.
Like Ginn, Moran also is looking for his first senior tour victory.
Missing a grainy 4-foot par putt at 12 cost him a share of the lead as well.
Moran appreciates being out here, coming from a more humble background than some of the others on the tour. He had been doing "basic grunt labor" at golf clubs in the Palm Springs area before getting a conditional exemption in the Q-School.
"Golf's a bad habit that's hard to break," he said.
Bill Brask and Jose Maria Canizares, both also looking for their first senior tour victory, were next at 68.
Jim Thorpe, trying to become the first to win three in a row on the senior tour this year, shot a 69 to join eight others at 2 under, including defending champion Bruce Fleisher, 1993 winner George Archer, three-time runner-up Dave Stockton and Gary Player.
Those at 70 included Graham Marsh and Gary McCord, who are battling for the 31st spot on the money list and the final invitation to the Senior Tour Championship closing the season.
Hale Irwin, who represents Kapalua up the road from here, birdied 14, 15 and 16 to fight back to even par at the 6,590-yard Kaanapali North Course. "It was nasty out there," said Irwin, the senior tour's all-time money winner.
CLASSIC NOTES: No surprise. The short (480-yard) par-5 15th hole again played as the easiest hole on the course in the 14-year history of the Kaanapali Classic. It averaged 4.39 with more birdies (46) than pars (30). The most difficult was the par-4 18th, which played to a 4.35 average. ... Playing in his 145th consecutive eligible tournament, Mike McCullough continues to be the senior tour's "ironman." His streak began at the 1996 Kaanapali Classic.