Chipping Away at History : State Amateur Titlist Sanday Seeks Rare Double in SCGA Event

SOUTH PASADENA — Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water. Not to mention onto the fairway.

Trouble lurks everywhere. The Walrus here, the Great White Shark there.

Now there’s a Guppy, and it’s carnivorous too.

Jeff Sanday picked up the curious moniker while playing at Cal State Northridge, when his teammates noticed more than a passing resemblance to Greg Norman, a.k.a. the Shark.

“I’m the albino golfer,” Sanday said.

Just like that, Sanday became the Baby Shark.

“Same blond hair, same red skin,” former teammate Jamey Forsyth said.

Same game, same red numbers? Uh, not exactly.

“I was the Shark for about two weeks,” said Sanday, 24. “After I shot 80 a couple of times, they realized I wasn’t that good.”

So, “Guppy” stuck like the fishy smell on an angler’s hands. Appropriately enough, with the Pacific Ocean within spitting distance, Sanday last month won the 84th State Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach Golf Links in one of the more memorable finals in two-plus decades. Some story line, some hook.

Just like that, Sanday is one of the favorites in the 96th Southern California Golf Assn. Amateur Championship, which begins today at Santa Ana Country Club. He is attempting to become the first player in 53 years to win both the state and SCGA titles.

No amateur in Southern California has been hotter. Sanday started rolling up numbers in the spring when he shot a course-record, nine-under-par 63 at the SCGA’s Members Club in Murrieta while playing against a field of professionals in a Golden State Tour event. Two weeks ago, he won his second consecutive Long Beach City title.

When Sanday entered the State Amateur last month, though, he wasn’t considered one of the top contenders. In his only other State Amateur appearance last summer, he missed the cut.

What’s more, he’d never before participated in a match-play event. After 36 holes, the State Amateur is exclusively match play, which is a mano-a-mano affair.

“I had zero experience other than playing for a few bucks with the boys,” said Sanday, who lives in South Pasadena. “I guess it’s about the same. When you don’t have any money, I’ll play as hard as anybody for five bucks.”

Sanday bucked up and was matchless as the road grew progressively steeper. He faced battle-tough John Pate, 35, of Santa Barbara in the 36-hole final. Pate’s brother Steve is a member of the PGA Tour.

John, a stockbroker, is a solid player in his own right and long has ranked among the state’s best amateurs. Asked the difference between his game and Steve’s, John cracked: “About $4 million.”

In the final, he gave Sanday his money’s worth, no doubt about it. Sanday shot a scintillating 68 in the morning round to take a commanding 5-up lead, then the pair took a one-hour break for lunch. Feast almost became famine.

“I figured we’d stop for maybe 20 minutes or so,” Sanday said. “I wasn’t prepared for it.”

Momentum drifted away like ebb tide on the storied 18th hole as Pate quickly mounted a comeback.

On the 14th hole, Sanday missed a two-foot putt for par to even the match. There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Sanday might have caved in at that point.

“He’d mope if he was a couple over [par],” said Corby Segal, a former Northridge teammate who played the local junior circuit with Sanday when both were kids. “Now he knows he can get it all back. He has a better demeanor.”

Today’s golf lesson: There’s a difference between getting hot and being hot.

“I’ve gotten smarter,” Sanday said. “Before, maybe I was ignorant, inexperienced. It’s true, I had a temper.”

Proof’s in the pudding, if not the putting. Meltdown never occurred after he missed the two-footer. In fact, Sanday birdied the 15th hole to reclaim the lead.

Sanday held a 1-up lead when the pair and a sizable gallery came to the 18th, a seaside par-five. Not since 1973, when the championship match was decided in sudden death on the 37th hole, had a final gone the distance.

“This was the best final I’ve seen in the 12 years I’ve been going up there,” said Bob Thomas, an SCGA official.

It ended in storybook fashion on one of golf’s most idyllic finishing holes.

The scene setter: Sanday was left with an 18-footer for a birdie. Pate had an uphill six-footer for a birdie and a possible tie.

“I was trying to make it,” Sanday said. “I felt I had to. He would have made his.”

Pate never had the opportunity. Sanday made the putt to end the match.

Sanday’s amateur career will soon reach its terminus too. After playing in a few more events this summer, he plans to turn pro.

“I’m in no hurry to get a job,” he said.

At some point, he must decide whether to take a crack at the PGA Tour’s difficult qualifying school or play in one of the many emerging satellite tours. Consequential stuff for a guy who didn’t begin playing the sport seriously--a relative term, to be sure--until last winter.

Sanday completed his eligibility at Northridge in 1993, when he averaged 73.4 strokes and had six top-10 individual finishes, both the best marks on the team. He spent the last 1 1/2 years completing his degree in finance.

When he graduated last December, he vowed to give the game his undivided attention.

“When you’re in school, you have a girlfriend, a job, a social life--there’s so much pulling at you,” he said. “Mentally, I’m much stronger now than when I was in school.”

His former mates can see the improvement. The guy who still answers to Guppy is becoming a big fish in an ever-bigger pond.

“He’s the golfer to watch this week,” said Forsyth, who also is entered in the SCGA. “He’s got the hot hand and he could be tough to catch.”