GOLF : Junior Ranks Gave Voorhees Fond Memories

As Heidi Voorhees of North Hollywood walked down the 18th fairway of the Victoria Golf Course in Carson earlier this month, she began to cry.

Weeping on a golf course is not unusual, of course, but Voorhees was swept up in emotion for a reason other than frustration. The tears rolled because the realization had struck that her junior golf career--a long and shining career--was just a pitching wedge and a short putt away from its conclusion.

Fittingly, she won that Southern California Junior Golf Assn. event on Aug. 17, going out as she came in to the local junior golf program--as a winner.

“I really hadn’t thought about it much,” said Voorhees, 18, who was a standout player on the boys’ golf team at Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks. “But when I walked down No. 18 that day, it really hit me. I had so many thoughts. There were so many great things to remember.”

Voorhees’ junior career began at the age of 11 and she won several age-group tournaments in that first year of competitive golf. At age 14 she began working with pro Chris Mullane at the Mountaingate Country Club in Los Angeles and she won her age division at the Los Angeles City Junior Championships later that year.

At 16 she captured the open division of the Optimist Junior World Championships in San Diego and this year she was the runner-up in the Los Angeles City Women’s Championships. She also won three other junior events.

“I remember when I was 11 and just starting to play and someone told me how fast it would go by and to be sure to stop and smell the roses as I went,” said Voorhees, who will attend USC on a full golf scholarship. “I remember thinking at the time, ‘Sure. I’ll never be 18.’

“Now I know what they meant.”

A Trojan, too--Another golfer who turned in a dazzling summer also reported to duty at USC this week. Chris Zambri, 19, returned to the Trojan golf team for another year after coming tantalizingly close to taking the brightest of all the amateur gold rings, the U.S. Amateur Championship.

Zambri, a former star at Westlake High, shocked everyone except himself in the first round of match play by trouncing defending champion Chris Patton at the Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver.

In the second round, Zambri knocked off USC teammate Brian Pemberton of Dublin, Calif. But his dream ended the next day with a loss to Tom Scherrer of Skaneateles, N.Y.

Zambri’s win over Patton was highlighted by his 5-iron shot on the par-3, 204-yard 12th hole. Zambri started the ball right and it turned back towards the center of the green, where it landed. It then bounced once and rolled into the cup for a hole-in-one.

“That was probably the best day I’ve ever had on a golf course,” Zambri said of his win over Patton.

C’mon, Bob!--Bob Davis parred the 85-yard, par-3 seventh hole at the Verdugo Hills Golf Course recently. It was not the best score on No. 7 that day. It was not the best score on No. 7 in his own foursome. As a matter of fact, his par was not even the best score on No. 7 at that very moment among golfers named Davis.

His brother Matt birdied the hole. And brothers Art and Dave both had holes-in-one.

“Art did it first,” said Dave Davis, 34, of Hollywood. “We didn’t see it go in but I saw it bounce near the pin and then we couldn’t see it anymore. I hit next and I watched my shot bounce twice and go right into the cup.

“The marshal was driving by the green and we yelled at him to check . . . He pulled out the flag and two golf balls popped out of the cup.”

It was the first ace for Dave and for Art, 34, of Canoga Park.