THE 19TH HOLE
SoCal
GOLF
INSIDER
2001, the Match Play was contested in
Australia).
After that, there have been two LPGA
tour events at La Costa: the 2010 and
2012 Kia Classics, sandwiched around a
$10 million, 10-month renovation of all
18 holes of the Champions Course and
four holes on the Legends Course. The
changes immediately improved aesthet-
ics and playing conditions, all but elimi-
nating flooding during the rainy season.
But there have been no more pro tour-
naments to showcase La Costa's improve-
ments. The 2014 California State Amateur
Championship was played at La Costa,
with Xander Schauffele outdueling Beau
Hossler in a memorable 36-hole final, but
La Costa Resort deserves more.
There have been rumblings that the
50-and-over PGA Tour Champions has
been looking for another event in South-
ern California to pair with the Toshiba
Classic in Newport Beach, so who knows?
Perhaps it could be played at La Costa in
late February, the week before the
Toshiba, so as not to conflict with the
Kia Classic, which moved to nearby
Aviara Golf Club in 2013 and is contested
in late March.
"A Champions Tour event would be a
home run here," Dustin Irwin, La Costa's
director of golf, said when I brought up
the possibility.
Another intriguing possibility, sug-
gested earlier this year by John Feinstein
in GolfWorld digital magazine, is moving
the Sentry Tournament of Champions
(the event's fourth title sponsor since
moving to Maui) out of Hawaii to restore
some luster to what once was one of the
tour's crown jewels. It's not even on net-
work TV anymore.
"If the TOC moved back to the main-
land, perhaps to La Costa or even to
Florida," Feinstein wrote, "the field would
include more stars – especially from Eu-
rope."
That would be a grand slam for La
Costa. It is time to return to tour golf
glory.
Randy Youngman has covered golf in
Southern California, at the professional
and amateur level, for more than 25 years.
He can be reached at
SoCalGolfRY@aol.com
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