Golf/Shav Glick : This Pro-Celebrity Tournament Offeres an Extra Incentive

St. Francis Hospital tournament at the Montecito Country Club in Santa Barbara is just one of many pro-celebrity fund-raising events that dot Southern California’s golf calendar, but it is rapidly becoming known as a good luck charm for touring professionals.

Hubert Green won the Hope Classic, Fuzzy Zoeller the Andy Williams San Diego Open, and Tom Watson the Crosby Pro-Am either the day before or during the same week they won the St. Francis.

“Get in our tournament and you’ll win the L.A. or the Crosby,� is the pitch tournament chairman Robert Vaillancourt is giving the pros for the 12th edition of the St. Francis pro-celebrity Monday, Jan. 28. That’s the day after the Los Angeles Open ends at Riviera and the week the Crosby starts in Pebble Beach.

The pitch, plus the enjoyment of playing a beautiful course for a good cause, has brought Vaillancourt and his co-chairmen, Al Geilberger and Buddy Allin, a strong entry that includes Scott Simpson, Rex Caldwell, Bob Eastwood, Morris Hatalsky, Larry Mize, Mike Nicolette and Hubert Green--all tour winners the last two years.

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, former chairman of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, will play in a foursome that also includes Bob Hope. Ueberroth plays to a 9 handicap at Bel-Air.

“This is Hope’s fourth time in our tournament,� Vaillancourt said. “With all the demands put on him, and his being 81, I honestly thought we’d never see him play here again. He’s simply amazing.�

Thirty-three touring pros and 33 celebrities will compete with a group of amateurs paying $500 each in the one-day event. Proceeds will go to the St. Francis Hospital’s building and other celebrities include Claude Akins, Pat Haden, Sandy Koufax, Don Sutton and Duffy Daugherty, the former Michigan State football coach who lives in Santa Barbara and plays Montecito often enough to know every nuance of its illusive greens, all of which break toward the ocean, even the ones appearing to be uphill.

The 59th Los Angeles Open week will start Monday with two tournaments at different sites.

At Riviera, the Mercedes-Benz Pro-Am will have a field of 25 touring pros and 100 amateurs selected by Mercedes dealers in the Greater Los Angeles area. First prize for the pros is a year’s use of a $35,000 Mercedes 300TD station wagon. The winner of the $400,000 Los Angeles Open also receives a year’s use of a 300TD.

At Jack Kramer’s Los Seranos Golf Club in Chino, 132 players, professionals and low handicap amateurs, will be attempting to qualify on the South course for four final spots in Thursday’s 140-player starting field at Riviera.

Wednesday, 46 professionals and 184 amateurs--who paid $1,500 each to match swings with a professional--will tour Riviera’s 6,946-yard, par-71 course in the Santa Monica Canyon of Pacifica Palisades.

Golf Notes

The late Dr. Victor B. Younger, who developed Santa Ana Bermuda grass while working on the development and maintenance of turf grass at UC Riverside, has been named recipient of the U.S. Golf Assn.’s Green Section Award. Younger, who died last April, developed the Santa Ana strain, which has a high tolerance to smog and salt . . . Duffy Waldorf of UCLA and Sepulveda won his third consecutive SoCal Public Links championship with a 65-67-69 over the Santa Anita, Wilson and Encino courses for a record 201 and a nine-stroke margin over runner-up Steve Lass of Altadena . . . . The 11th annual 552 Club Crosby Southern will be played Feb. 9-10 at Irvine Coast CC in Newport Beach with 72 pros and 72 amateur partners playing for $40,000. Proceeds will benefit the Hoag Memorial Hospital. . . . George Fabian and Bob Muckey won the SoCal Lefties season opener, a lefty-righty best ball at Fallbrook.

Clinics: Former Cal State Northridge golfer Rex Caldwell, now a touring pro, will hold an exhibition and clinic Tuesday at the university driving range, adjacent to the track stadium. Caldwell, winner of the 1984 LeJet Open, was an All American at Northridge in 1971-72. Proceeds of the clinic will go to the school’s golf scholarship fund. . . . Hall of Fame professional Paul Runyan will conduct a series of clinics at 7:30 p.m. in the Brookside clubhouse in Pasadena, starting Feb. 11. The schedule Feb. 11, putting and chipping; Feb. 13, pitching; Feb. 18, full shots, all irons; Feb. 20, fairway and driver woods; Feb. 25, sand shots; Feb. 27, uneven lies. The cost is $100 for the series or $20 for a single clinic, and proceeds will benefit children’s programs at the Pasadena Guidance Clinics.

Robert Horneman of Santa Anita is new president of the SoCal Public Links Assn. Other officers: Wilfred Montague, Victoria, first vice president; Hal Ralney, La Mirada, second vice president; Chuck Joregensen, Marshall Canyon, secretary; and Fred Berglund, Los Amigos, treasurer . . . Marty Tregnan has been elected Griffith Park Men’s Club president for the 10th time. . . . Friendly Hills CC will hold its sixth annual benefit tournament Monday with pros Tom Kite, Bruce Leitzke and Bill Rogers playing a four-hole exhibition after a clinic.Beneficiaries are the Boys & Girls Clubs of Whittier, Child Guidance Center and Presbyterian Inter-Community Hospital Foundation . . . Former LPG pros Linda Craft and Penny Zavichas will open their golf school Feb. 3 at the Pala Mesa resort in Fallbrook, with classes continuing through March 31. . . . Pro Terry Lange will head a four-man team from El Caballero CC in the 13th annual Gordon’s Gin World Pro-Am starting today at Pebble Beach.

The UCLA-Bill Bryant Memorial collegiate tournament will start today and end Tuesday at Industry Hills. Next week, the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate is scheduled at Sandpiper CC, north of Santa Barbara. Both tournaments will feature No. 3-ranked UCLA, with Waldorf, the California amateur champion, and USC’s Sam Randolph, the U.S. amateur runner-up. . . . The Golden State Tour pros will play a 54-hole tournament Wednesday through Friday at Soboba Springs in Hemet, followed by another 54 holes Jan. 30-Feb. 1 at Rainbow Canyon in Temecula. A new division of the Golden State Tour will open Feb. 4 with a senior amateur tournament at Yorba Linda. It will be the first of a 24-event schedule for players 50 and up. . . . Two Cal Poly Pomona seniors majoring in turf grass management, David Oatis, 27, and Becky White, 34, have received Golf Course Superintendents Assn. scholarships. . . . Centinela Hospital Medical Center of Inglewood has been named official hospital of the PGA tour, and Dr. Frank Jobe of Continela is the tour’s orthopedic consultant.