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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend August 29, 2005 Three-time champ Smith returns to SOGT With another victory, the hometown product can tie Dick Hanen for second on all-time list of men’s winners By TIM TROWER Mail Tribune Tommy Smith won’t have a chance at any records, as he did the last time he teed it up in the Southern Oregon Golf Tournament. But he can distinguish himself in another fashion. Smith, a hometown favorite and the winner of three men’s division championships, is one win away from matching Dick Hanen for No. 2 on the men’s division all-time victory list. Hanen won four times, the last coming in 1947. Eddie Simmons is the all-time leader with six titles. In order to win his fourth crown, Smith will have to make an unblemished run through the 76th edition of the event at Rogue Valley Country Club. Advertisement The tournament, the largest single-site match-play competition in the United States, begins with local men’s qualifying on Tuesday and continues through Labor Day, when winners will be crowned in five championship flights: men, junior-senior men, senior men, women and senior women. More than 400 golfers will participate. Smith won the title in 1989, then added back-to-back championships in 1999 and 2000. He was in line to become the first player to win three straight times but was derailed in 2001 by Kevin Klabunde. Smith and his family then moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., preventing a return engagement until this year. "It’s always fun," says Smith. The return of Smith and Jimmy White, whom Smith beat for the title in 2000, signifies a spike in talent at the highest level of the tournament. White, a former University of Oregon player, entered last year but was a late scratch. Without those two and 2002-03 winner Scott Tuttle, Brooks Newsom breezed to his second championship last year. Newsom defeated Mike Spiegel in the 36-hole final, 7 and 6. There was a decided out-of-town flavor in most of the 2004 championship matches. Finalists in the five divisions came from Portland, San Francisco, Tucson and Bend. Only in the men’s senior division, where Jim Smith defeated Terry Anderson in a battle of RVCC members, and the women’s senior division, where Carmen Akins triumphed, were there local residents vying. As such, the final-day galleries, a hallmark of this tournament, dwindled a bit. All of the winners are back to defend their titles, including Jay Audia in the junior-senior division and Nettie Morrison in the women’s. Smith, who works in real estate investments and recently played a round with Ashland PGA player Jason Allred, who also lives in Scottsdale, doesn’t frequent the golf course as he once did. He plays once or twice a month, he says, and has managed to get out and hit a few balls on the range. "We’ll see," he says of his chances. "I’ll be competitive, I think." There is no great insight or secret that goes into winning. "I think it’s just a matter of competing," says Smith. "I don’t think you have to have your best game. If it was a stroke-play tournament, I don’t think I’d have a chance. But it’s match play. You only have to play as good as the guy next to you. It comes down more to competition, not necessarily how sharp your game is." Speaking of sharp games, enter Newsom, who does have strong ties to the Rogue Valley even though he lives in Portland and plays out of Columbia Edgewater. His in-laws live in Medford, and he’s a regular in the city tournament as well as the Southern Oregon. "It’s probably my favorite tournament that I play in every year," he says. "We’ve really turned it into a family vacation." Newsom, who also won in 1998, will be anything but a pushover. He’s coming off his first club championship at Columbia Edgewater, which features eight players with handicaps better than scratch, he says, and has also competed in the U.S. Amateur qualifier, the Pacific Coast Amateur and the Oregon Amateur this summer. In addition, he traveled to Scotland recently with his father and played 11 rounds in 5½ days. "It was nothing but eat, sleep and golf," he says. Newsom and Smith will be part of a strong qualifying foursome. They will join Justin Wise and Ryan Shaefer during out-of-town men’s and women’s qualifying Wednesday. The group tees off at 10:46. One change golfers will experience this year, as reported in an earlier story, is the closure of the third hole on the inside nine. Hot weather prevented reconstruction and reseeding of the hole from being completed in time for the tournament. Depending on the circumstances during play: the first and second holes on the inside will be played an extra time to make up for skipping No. 3; a new tee will be set up on the ninth hole of the inside course — which is the 18th hole on the original course — for matches that go that far, making it a par 4; and a par-3 practice hole on the west side of the property will be brought into play. Reach sports editor Tim Trower at 776-4479, or e-mail Three-time champ Smith returns to SOGT ">[email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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