Gore Cuts Swath to Final

PEBBLE BEACH — Jason Gore’s dream of winning the California Amateur Championship lives on, while Tim Hogarth’s dream week became a nightmare and J.T. Kohut also endured a rude awakening.

Gore, a Valencia resident and recent graduate of Pepperdine, plays for the title today in the 86th year of the event.

Gore, 22, rallied to beat Ed Cuff Jr. of Temecula, 1 up, in the semifinals Friday afternoon after eliminating Dan Arroyo of Berkeley, 3 and 2, in the quarterfinals in the morning on the Pebble Beach Golf Links.

That put Gore in the 36-hole final today.

Gore, who won Pacific 10 Conference championships as a freshman and sophomore while attending Arizona, will face Scott Watson of Walnut Creek in the final, which begins at 6:20 a.m. The second 18 starts at 11:30 a.m.

Watson, a 25-year-old UC Davis student, reached the championship round with a 4 and 3 semifinal victory over top-seeded Hogarth, a Chatsworth resident who won the 1996 U.S. Public Links championship and tied for second in the L.A. Open earlier this month.

The loss ended a strong week by Hogarth, who set a stroke-play medalist record score of 138 and won three times in match play, including a 6 and 5 victory over Andy Miller, 19-year-old BYU student from Napa and son of former U.S. Open champion Johnny Miller, in the quarterfinals Friday morning.

Hogarth wasn’t the only golfer from the region victimized by Watson, who knocked off Kohut, a 17-year-old Simi Valley resident and Westlake High student, 3 and 2, in the quarterfinals.

In Gore’s victory over Cuff, the fabled Pebble Beach wind came up for the first time this week.

“This is the first time I’ve played Pebble in the afternoon,” Gore said. “It’s a totally different course than in the morning. Plus, neither of us played well, at all. He just made the last mistake.”

Gore made most of his mistakes early and the 35-year-old Cuff had a 2-up lead through 11 holes before Gore rallied to win the 12th, 14th, 15th and 16th holes with pars and take a 2-up lead.

Cuff cut Gore’s lead in half with a par to win the par-3 17th hole.

Both players struggled on the par-five 18th hole. Gore’s second shot hit a tree and bounced into deep rough, while Cuff plugged his second shot in a greenside bunker and could do nothing but explode his next shot over the green. Gore won with a two-foot putt for bogey.

The semifinals started well enough for Hogarth, who won the first two holes.

Watson won the third hole to get within one and Hogarth maintained that edge until the par-four 11th, when Watson won the first of five consecutive holes--four of them with pars--to close out the match.

Hogarth, 30, who seemed to play his way out of a slump earlier in the week, said he felt his game slipping in the morning round.

“It’s just that the few good shots I hit early turned into birdies and that put Andy in a big hole,” Hogarth said.

After sinking a 10-foot par putt on the first hole, he hit radar-like approach shots on Nos. 2, 3 and 4, won No. 5 with a par 3, and nearly holed his second shot on the par-5 sixth hole for a double eagle.

Hogarth won that hole with a birdie and also birdied the par-3 seventh hole to win his sixth consecutive hole.

Gore built a 4-up lead over Arroyo through seven holes.

Arroyo, who plays at the University of California, cut the margin to two at No. 12, but bogeyed the 14th hole. The match ended two holes later.

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Paul Ladin of Westlake Village shot a one-under-par 71 for a three-round total of 223 and finished third in the 54-hole Senior Amateur Championship at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach.

Ladin, 64, who won the Senior Amateur in 1993, finished behind Cliff Davis, 55, of Suisun, who fired a 73 and finished at 220, and Jim McMurtrey, 64, of Danville, who closed with a 71 and totaled 221.

Bill Brooks of Simi Valley was fourth with a final-round 74 and 224 total.