When asked to grade her performance in her inaugural Ladies Professional Golf Association event, Amy Eneroth reluctantly gave herself a C-minus.

“Only because of the way I came back after that terrible start,” explained the 22-year-old Mead High School graduate and former standout at Washington State University, who kicked off her professional golf career Friday by shooting an opening-round 78 in the Safeway Classic at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Ore.

But when it came to grading her overall first-time LPGA experience, Eneroth eagerly handed out an A.

“Even though I didn’t play that well, I looked around and saw all the players I’ve always looked up to and realized they’re really not that much better than me,” she said, after posting a 6-over-par total that included double bogeys on two of her first four holes and left her tied with three other golfers for 131st place in the $1.7 million event – and in need of a career round today to make the 36-hole cut and play Sunday.

“I beat a couple of them today, tied a few, and realized I have what it takes to make it out here. I’m just not as consistent as most of them are,” she said.

Eneroth, who finished her collegiate career at WSU this spring and plans to graduate next May with a degree in a sports management and a minor in business, is playing in the Safeway Classic on a sponsor’s exemption she earned by winning a qualifying event at Langdon Farms Golf Club in Aurora, Ore., earlier this summer.

She is spending the week in the Portland area with her parents, Dave and Dovie Eneroth, and taking in as much of the tournament atmosphere as she can.

“I practiced quite a bit on my off time,” Eneroth said, “but (Thursday) I went out to the pro-am event and followed Kristy McPherson and some other top players around. I was just kind of watching to see what they do and how I compare.

“I think I’ve had a good mix of practicing and, also, experiencing the whole LPGA thing.”

Eneroth’s opening round, which left her 12 shots behind tournament leader Beth Bader, was a wild ride that tested her mental toughness, as well as her considerable physical talents.

For the whole story, see Bergum.

Desert Canyon Golf Course, a Jack Frei-designed layout, is back – and in a big way.

That should come as welcomed news to those who watched the one-time centerpiece of golf in central Washington, which opened to five-star reviews in 1993, deteriorate to a mere shadow of its former self in the early 2000s.

Once ranked by Golf Digest as the second-best conditioned course in the United States, Desert Canyon Golf Resort ran into some major money problems that resulted in a bankruptcy filing and a change of ownership. Under the new owners, the golf course seemed to get shortchanged, and those who played it on a regular basis were quick to note its decline.

In late December of 2007, however, the resort was purchased by Homestead Northwest, Inc., which seemed determined from the onset to bring the golf course back to revered status.

And head professional Mark Rhodes, who hired on earlier this spring, is convinced the new owners have succeeded in doing just that.

“While they were having (money) problems four or five years ago, I understand the condition of the course went downhill,” Rhodes explained. “Since I got here about five months ago, we’ve had a lot of people come through that used to play it in the old days, but kind of quit playing it because of those deteriorating conditions.

“But now that they’ve started coming back, the comment I hear most is, ‘Boy, Desert Canyon is back to what it was.’ ”

Rhodes would certainly get no argument from this corner, because I found the course to be as well-conditioned, fair, challenging and fun as I remembered it when I first played it a decade ago.

For the full story, please see Bergum.

Her father Steve is the longtime head professional at one of the area’s most revered country clubs. One brother, Alex, is ranked No. 8 on the Nationwide Tour’s list of leading money winners, having already pocketed $192,700. The other, Corey, recently took home a check for $11,000 after winning the 2009 Rosauers Open, the richest event staged by the Pacific Northwest PGA.

All three won individual state championships for Ferris High School and went on to claim several other prominent amateur titles.

Yet, the best natural swing in Spokane’s First Family of Golf – according to her father, who is also one of the top teachers in the region – belongs to Hillary Prugh Carls, who was the only one of Steve and Susan Prugh’s three children who did not pursue a career in golf.

Instead, the 30-year-old Carls, who was a four-year letterwinner and All-Big Sky Conference golfer at Montana State University, went on to earn a law degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland and was recently named a full partner in the Bozeman-based law firm of Angel, Coil & Bartlett.

“It made sense,” Steve Prugh said of his daughter’s decision to practice law. “She’s always been kind of argumentative, so she knows how to argue a case.

“But she’s also a wonderful golfer. I think she’s got the best natural swing of anyone in our family. Her swing just melts in butter. It’s so pretty, it’s ridiculous, but golf was never the end all or love of her life like it tends to be with our two boys.”

So these days, Hillary Prugh Carls feels fortunate if she can squeeze five or six rounds of golf a summer into her hectic schedule, occasionally playing with her husband Tom, a building contractor, in corporate scramble events where she still can wow her playing partners with her ability to move a golf ball.

During one recent outing with a male colleague who was not familiar with her golf history or golf swing, Prugh Carls was challenged to a money game. It was a challenge she readily accepted, and when her opponent – after hitting his opening tee shot from the white tees – suggested she move up and play from the reds, she respectfully declined and proceeded to laser her drive from those same white tees to within a few yards of his.

“He was really surprised,” Prugh Carls said. “He didn’t suggest I play from the red tees again the rest of the way, and, fortunately, I ended up beating him, as well.”

Prugh Carls said she toyed with the idea of trying to make a living playing golf – but only briefly.

For the rest of the story, see Bergum.

Host professional Gary Lindeblad, just prior to starting play in Friday’s opening round of the Rosauers Open golf tournament, claimed he didn’t feel any differently than he has any other time he’s teed it up in the Pacific Northwest PGA’s richest section event.

Which is difficult to imagine, considering Lindeblad was recently declared cancer free for the first time since 1998 when he was first diagnosed with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia, a rare and frequently terminal form of lymphoma.

Since then, the 58-year-old Lindeblad, who is in his 24th year as the head professional at Indian Canyon Golf Course, where he founded the wildly successful Rosauers Open in 1988, had undergone a seemingly endless series of chemotherapy treatments that have often sapped him of his strength, but never his enthusiasm for life and the game of golf.

But on Friday, looking fit and trim while hitting a few preround practice putts, Lindeblad explained that his doctor informed him during his last checkup that the cancer has gone away – for the time being, at least.

“He said he couldn’t find a trace of it anywhere,” Lindeblad said. “It’s gone, I guess. It’s a full-blown miracle.”

When asked how he feels about the unexpected development, Lindeblad said, “I don’t know. I really don’t know what to think. But my wife is probably mad, because the news set her retirement plans back quite a bit.”

Lindeblad, who was given two to five years to live at the time he was first diagnosed with cancer, won the Rosauers title in 1990 to become the first host professional to win a PNWPGA major event. In 2007, he was inducted into the PNWPGA’s Hall of Fame, and just last fall was inducted into the Eastern Washington University Athletics Hall of Fame by his alma mater.

Lindeblad said his doctor has been “dancing around the issue” of the cancer being gone for three or four months, noting that samples of his last two bone marrow taps were sent to three or four different labs because his doctor didn’t really believe they were clean.

“And then when I went in for my scheduled chemotherapy treatment a couple of weeks ago, he said, ‘I don’t think we need to do these any more, because we just can find any (cancer).’ ” Lindeblad said. “Even when I first heard the news, I didn’t know how to feel.

“You think a certain way for 12 years and something like that changes, it takes awhile to figure out how you should feel then. And in my case, it may take another 12 years, at least, if I’m lucky.”

For more see Bergum.

So far the fallout has been minimal.

But Ryan Ressa expects that to change as more and more friends from his hometown of Pullman and Washington State University learn he has gone all Bruin on them.

The 29-year-old Ressa, who played golf for Pullman High School and later became both a player and assistant coach at Washington State, recently accepted a job as the assistant men’s golf coach under Derek Freeman at UCLA. And as a lifelong Cougar fan and WSU graduate he figures to eventually catch some grief for siding with the Pacific-10 Conference rival Bruins.

“I haven’t heard much yet, but I’m sure I will,” Ressa said Friday afternoon, while completing his move from Durham, N.C. – where he served the previous two years as an assistant at Duke University – to the sprawling city of Los Angeles.

One person who has already heard about Ressa’s new job, and who remains very supportive of his latest career move, is WSU golf coach Walt Williams. Not only did Williams coach Ressa for two seasons in college, but he also gave him a position as a volunteer assistant on his staff and later hired him as a full-time assistant.

“Walt’s OK with just about anything I do,” Ressa said, “as long as I don’t go across the state (to the University of Washington) and put on that purple and gold. He’s a great guy, and he’s going to help you out wherever – but if you cross that line and go to work for the Huskies, it’s probably over.”

Even his older brother, Tim, who is the head professional at Stoneridge Golf Club in Blanchard, Idaho, and a former teammate at Pullman High and WSU, claims he can deal with Ressa’s decision to become a Bruin.

“As long as he doesn’t end up at UW,” the elder Ressa added. “Otherwise, I’m happy for him.”

The route Ressa has taken to get where he is today has been a bit circuitous.

For the rest of the story see Bergum.

Head golf professionals are not simply ordained.

Most find their way to the top only after serving extended stints as assistants. The money isn’t great, and the hours can be brutal.

But it’s hard to imagine any of those in our region paying bigger dues than Andy Hite, now in his 11th year as the head pro at Dominion Meadows Golf Course in Colville.

Hite, who grew up in Kettle Falls – where he still lives with his wife, Laurie, and the youngest of their three sons, Shelby – launched his quest to become a PGA Class A profes- sional in 1994 when he hired on as an assistant under Bob Scott at Liberty Lake Golf Course.

While Hite enjoyed the working environment there, the job did have its drawbacks – such as having to get up at 3:30 a.m. and make the 102-mile drive from Kettle Falls to Liberty Lake each day during the summer.

Those predawn commutes, he said, were killers – literally.

In fact, Hite might have done more to thin out our region’s wildlife population during his three years at Liberty Lake than some avid hunters do in a lifetime.

“I hit three deer, a bear and a parked pickup truck making that drive,” he said. “It was tough on me, and my cars.”

According to Hite, he hit the three deer and the pickup with the same vehicle – a Chevrolet Celebrity that hardly satisfied his fascination with “anything that goes fast” but got good gas mileage. The bear he hit with his Dodge Stealth, a sleek sports car better suited for speed, but one he rarely drove to and from work.

Hite repaired his Celebrity after his first encounter with a deer, but lived with the damage after hitting the second and third.

He totaled the car when he ran into the pickup, which had been stolen and abandoned on the highway near the small town of Addy.

“Whoever stole it had parked it sideways in the middle of road,” Hite said. “And I came up over the hill in the dark and T-boned it.”

For the rest of the story see Bergum.

Bruce Perisho, the general manager of Palouse Ridge Golf Club, heard plenty of complimentary comments about his course this week during the Washington State Golf Association Men’s Amateur Championship.

But none struck home as deeply as the e-mail Perisho and several members of his staff received from a competitor who went home early after missing the 36-hole cut on Wednesday but still proclaimed the par-72, 7,308-yard layout that serves the home course for Washington State University “one of the best courses,” he has played.

“That means a lot,” Perisho said. “The guys that play well always say great things about the course. But this guy missed the cut and still enjoyed it.”

And he wasn’t the only one.

“All the players loved the course,” Perisho said of the John Harbottle-designed layout that opened to rave reviews last fall. “You want a championship course like this to hold up well and test the best players, and ours did exactly that the last four days.”

Tyler Johnsen, the WSGA’s manager of rules and competition, also praised the Palouse Ridge layout.

“This is the perfect course for our championship,” he said. “It rewards good shots and punishes poor ones. It was a great challenge, which is obvious by the winning score (of 4 under par), which is pretty high by our standards.”

The course was set up in a dastardly manner for Friday’s final round. The fairways were dry, the greens hard – but smooth – and most of the pin placements downright nasty. But Austin Hurt, a senior-to-be at Washington State University, who took advantage of his familiarity with the Cougars’ home course to fire a course-record 65 that gave him the title, didn’t seem to mind.

“It was great setup,” he said. “During the practice rounds, everybody was coming off the course saying, ‘This is going to be the hardest course ever. The wind is ridiculous, and the holes are ridiculously long.’ Everybody was complaining, but it was a great challenge – which it should be.”

For the rest of the story see Bergum.

Despite appearances to the contrary, Kit DeAndre insists his is not a head golf professional without a golf course.

“I’ve still got a golf course,” he said recently with a chuckle. “It’s just a little dirty, that’s all.”

Just a little dirty? How about “just dirt?”

That would seem to be a more fitting description of Liberty Lake Golf Course, which is in the throes of a major $4.5 million makeover that will keep the 50-year-old county owned layout out of commission until at least May 2010.

With it grassless, rolling terrain resembling a moonscape of sorts, LLGC is barely recognizable these days. And the 49-year-old DeAndre, Liberty Lake’s long-time head professional, is doing whatever he can to stay busy during what is normally his busiest time of the year.

“It seems kind of strange,” said DeAndre, who underwent hip-replacement surgery last winter in anticipation of his golf course being mothballed for nearly 21 months. “But I’m finding ways to occupy my time.”

Golf, however, is not one of them – mainly because of the extended rehabilitation period that follows most hip replacements.

DeAndre went under the knife on Jan. 16 to replace an arthritic hip that has been deteriorating since he broke a femur and cracked his pelvis in a motorcycle accident 24 years ago. Although the surgery was performed in as non-invasive a manner as possible, the pain has yet to fully subside.

“I’ve actually been swinging a club again the last few days,” DeAndre said, “and I’m not ready yet, I can tell you that.”

So DeAndre splits his clubhouse time checking phone messages, trying to line up financing for the new fleet of riding carts he plans to have on hand when his golf course reopens and coordinating with the company hired to do the interior renovation.

As part of a financial package he worked out with the county to survive almost two years’ worth of lost revenues from cart rentals and clubhouse, restaurant and driving range sales, he also spends time surveying the construction work going on just outside the clubhouse window, helping whenever possible and learning all he can about the renovation process.

“I try to be here at least five days a week to keep tabs on what’s going on,” DeAndre said. “That way, when somebody calls with questions about the progress being made on the course, I hope to have the answer rather than just saying, ‘It’s coming along.’”

For the rest of the story see Bergum.

Just call it an annual golf getaway gone bad.

So bad, in fact, that for the first time in 23 years, it didn’t happen.

My early spring golf reunion with four former college classmates, first staged in 1987, was scheduled to be held recently in my home state of Iowa and hosted by a lifelong friend who still resides near Des Moines. In anticipation of our arrival, my friend reserved tee times at four of the top courses in the state, invested in a new gas grill for his deck and stockpiled massive amounts of adult beverages inside the refrigerator in his garage.

My wife and I decided to combine this year’s golf reunion with our annual trip to Iowa to visit her mother. The plan was to stay two weeks, with me spending the majority of the first week with my college buddies and the second at my mother-in-law’s home in the small town of Rockwell City.

But as you have probably deduced by now, that didn’t happen.

Instead, I ended up spending the better part of 14 days with my wife and her mother, playing lots of cards, eating great-tasting food that was way too healthy and trying to pass some of the time between meals by making daily walks to the Dollar General store to load up on chocolate.

The long drive to Iowa started off delightfully uneventful, with the miles rushing past as I thought about the upcoming golf reunion I anticipate so eagerly each spring.

For the rest of the story see Bergum.

Chessey Thomas doesn’t have a precise explanation for the dramatic improvement in her golf game this spring.

Some additional work on her putting and chipping has helped, she said. And so did a minor mental adjustment that forced her out of her “high 70s” comfort zone.

But even that doesn’t seem like enough to sufficiently explain the remarkable roll Thomas has been on of late, having won both the State 4A individual and team titles and the Girls 16-18 Division of the 2009 Pacific Northwest Junior PGA Championship within a three-day span late last month.

Thomas, who attends St. George’s School but plays high school golf for Lewis and Clark because St. George’s does not compete in the sport, led LC to the State 4A team championship as a junior this spring and also captured medalist honors by posting a 36-hole score of 5-under-par 139 at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco.

Her two-day total was one stroke better than the 140 turned in by Kamiak’s Seo Hee Moon, who was the defending champion.

Thomas proved her effort at state was no fluke just three days later when she captured the PNW PGA’s junior title at Tumwater Golf Club with back-to-back rounds of even-par 72 that produced a 36-hole total of 144 that was three strokes better than that of her nearest competitor.

For the rest of the story see Bergum.

Ken Spence was never the type to let one particular adventure consume his life.

That’s why there were more than just golf stories swapped during the memorial service held recently at Hangman Valley Golf Course in his honor.

Spence, a native Texan who migrated north and took over as the head professional at Hangman Valley when it first opened in 1969, died last week at the age of 81 following a long illness. Family and friends gathered in the clubhouse at the county-owned course on Wednesday to pay tribute and reminisce.

“It was absolutely wonderful,” Mark Spence, one of Ken Spence’s two surviving sons, said of the gathering. Mark worked as an assistant pro under his father at Hangman Valley for seven summers.

“There were all kinds of different stories you can tell, and things you can say about my dad and golf, but as soon as the golf season ended – because he had so many different interests – he was always headed in 18 different directions,” Mark said.

“And the thing I’ll always remember about him, personally, was his knowledge of nature.”

The elder Spence, who grew up in the Houston area during the Great Depression, became involved with golf at an early age – not as a player, but as a scavenger, and savvy young businessmen.

According to his son, Spence spent much of his time as a youngster sneaking onto local golf courses and scouring the roughs and water hazards for lost golf balls, which he would then take out to the entrance to the course and sell for a dime apiece to golfers on their way in to play.

For the rest of this post see Bergum

I walked past my golf clubs in the garage again the other day and felt obligated to stop and apologize.

I’ve shunned them unmercifully this spring, having played only once in a Monday pro-am event.  I’m not sure why, but I know both the weather and economy have played a role.

I hate playing in the rain and cold, and we’ve certainly experienced our share of both once again this spring.  And having had my paycheck sliced by seven percent, it just doesn’t seem as easy to commit to shelling out the money for greens fees and adult beverages as it has been in the past.

You can read the column I wrote for Saturday morning’s S-R, dealing with the the gloomy weather and economic outlook here.  And while you’re at it, go ahead and leave you thoughts on the matter.

Do you plan to play as much golf as you normally do this summer?  How many of you out there took the leap and purchased new clubs?  I would like to hear about it.

The 2008 Rosaurs Open golf tournament is history, and the event has it’s first three-time champion.

You can read an unedited version of the final-round story that will appear in Monday’s S-R below.

COSTON RUNS DOWN BENZEL, CLAIM THIRD ROSAUERS TITLE
Jeff Coston’s long-running love affair with Indian Canyon Golf Course and the city of Spokane continued Sunday afternoon when the 53-year-old teaching pro out of Semiahmoo Golf and Country Club in Blaine overcame a four-stroke second-round deficit to become the first three-time winner of the Rosauers Open golf tournament.

Coston, playing in the second-to-last threesome of the day, birdied three of the last four holes on the 6,255-yard, par-71 Canyon layout to post a final-round score of 14-under-par 199 and overtake second-round leader Ryan Benzel, who was playing in the threesome just behind him.

The win was worth $11,000 and prompted Coston to note that he’s taken quite a bit of money home with him from Spokane since the Rosauers was first played in 1988.

“The tournament, the golf course and Spokane have been good to me,” he said, after learning Benzel had failed to birdie the 449-yard par-5 18th hole and force a playoff. “This is just a fun place to play and a fun place to be.

“I enjoy the heat, enjoy the course, enjoy the people and just feel fortunate to be able to play tournament golf here.”

Coston’s road to a third Rosauer’s title was made a bit less taxing by the play of the 29-year-old Benzel, who struggled with his game throughout Sunday’s final round and showed few signs of the crisp ball striking that produced back-to-back rounds of 64 during the first two days of the tournament.

The former Ritzville High School and University of Idaho standout, who started the day with a three-stroke advantage over his nearest competitor and Sunday playing partner, Rob Gibbons, turned his drive on the first hole left into an unplayable lie, made a double-bogey six and let a whole bunch of players back into the tournament.

Despite his opening-hole foibles, Benzel still had a chance to save bogey. But he missed a 2 ½ foot putt that was about the same length as the short downhiller he missed for par on the difficult 438-yard, par-4 14th.

“I definitely didn’t have my best stuff going today,” admitted Benzel, who left himself with dreaded downhill putts on Indian Canyon’s severely sloped greens on far too many occasions. “But if I look back on my round, it was those two little missed putts at one and 14 that killed me.”

Still, Benzel had a great chance to win the tournament outright – or at least force a playoff – on the uphill par-5 closing hole, where he blasted his drive down the middle of the fairway and left himself within 170 yards of the back right pin placement.

But his second shot carried long into the deep rough behind the green, his touchy downhill chip landed in the long grass and failed to fully release, finishing 10 feet short of the hole, and his greasy birdie putt hit the right edge of the cup and lipped out.

“I was hoping (my approach shot) wasn’t that deep,” Benzel said, “because that’s not the spot where you want to be. I must have really had the adrenalin flowing. And my chip shot was just one big hop from releasing straight down to the hole.”

Coston’s start on Sunday was almost as unnerving as Benzel’s. After hitting it left off the tee on No. 1 and making bogey, he failed to birdie the easy par-5 second and went on to shoot even-par 35 on the front nine. But after making birdies at the par-3 11th and par-5 12th, he convinced himself that he could really become a major factor in the tournament by making birdies on the last four holes – which he almost did by posting two-putt birdies on both the short par-4 17th and par-5 closing hole.

At the risk of this once-unheard-of practice of crowing an amateur champion somehow evolving into a warped Rosauers Open tradition, Mill Creek Country Club head professional Ryan Benzel took a pro-like stand Saturday morning.

Just minutes after Wenatchee amateur Nick Ellis had played himself into contention by shooting an 8-under par 63 at Indian Canyon Golf Course, Benzel posted his second consecutive round of 7-under 64 and made sure Ellis, who opened with a 69, will have to play lights-out again in today’s final round to become only the second – and second consecutive – amateur to win the Northwest PGA Section’s richest event.

Benzel, who won the Rosauers in 2005, closed his second round of this 54-hole event with three consecutive birdies and an eagle-3 at the par-5 finishing hole on the 6,255-yard, par-71 Canyon layout. His big finish resulted in a 36-hole total of 14-under par 128 and forged a three-stroke lead over fellow pro and former champion Rob Gibbons heading into today’s final round.

Ellis, who will be a sophomore on Washington State University’s golf team next fall, is another stroke back at 132 and tied for third place with two-time champion Jeff Coston, a teaching pro out of Semiahmoo Golf & Country Club in Blaine.

“I just finished good,” said Benzil, a former standout at Ritzville High School and the University of Idaho. “Other than that, it was just a matter of two other birdies and a whole lot of pars.

“I was never in any big trouble, but I kind of feel like I snuck my way into this one. I was a little less consistent throughout the round than I was on Friday. I was just rolling along with a lot of pars and then finished really hot, kind of out of the blue.

Ellis, who opened with a 2-under 69 in his first Rosauers, torched Indian Canyon’s front nine on Saturday with a 7 under-par 28 that included birdies on the last five holes.

“I hit a good shot on No. 1, got (my approach) to within a couple of feet and made birdie to get some confidence,” he said. “After that, I just kept throwing darts and rolled in a lot of putts. I was unconscious.”

Ellis’ unlikely round put him into today’s final threesome, which ranks among the most intriguing in Rosauers history.

The 19-year-old Ellis will be paired with the 29-year-old Benzel, perhaps the hottest player in the Northwest PGA Section of the PGA right now, and Gibbons, who considers himself a blast from the past, considering he won his only Rosauers title back in 1991 when the tournament was held at MeadowWood Golf Course because of the poor condition of Indian Canyon’s greens.

None of three in the final group, which tees off a 11:30 this morning, expects to alter his aggressive approaches on Indian Canyon’s tree-line layout.

“You just have to make a lot birdies,” said Benzel. “I like being in the lead, but you can’t really put anything on cruise control. You still have to go out and fight like everybody else.

“In my case, I just don’t have to make up any strokes, and that’s kind of nice.”

Ellis claimed he will also keep firing his approach shots at every pin, just like he did on Friday.

“When you shoot 7-under on the front nine, you’re thinking, ‘Wow, I could shoot 59 today,’ ” explained the Eastmont High School graduate. “But you have to stay in present, take it shot-for-shot and see what happens.”

Day One of the 2008 Rosauers Open golf tournament is in the books, and it should surprise no one that Ryan Benzel has the early lead.

The former Ritzville High School and University standout shot overcame blustery conditions and a hard and fast Indian Canyon Golf Course layout to shoot 64 on Friday.

You can read an unedited version of my story that will appear in Saturday morning’s Spokesman-Review below.

Most of the local competitors I talked to on Friday said the course was in the best condition it has been in since hosting the Public Links Championship in 1984.

And with the greens and fairways dried out a bit at the request of officials from the Northwest Section of the PGA, low scores were hard come by.

In recent years, there seems to have always been a bunch of golfers bunched at 65 or 66 after the first round. But following play on Friday, one had to drop back to 68 to find the first real cluster of like scores.

Personally, I hope the golf course contines to show its teeth and turn the final two round of this year’s Rosauers into something other than the birdie-fest it has been in the not-so-distant past.

As promised, here’s that unedited story detailing Friday’s first round:

BENZEL’S 64 GRABS FIRST-ROUND ROSAUERS LEAD

On a day when Indian Canyon Golf Course flashed its fangs and made ridiculously low scores tough to come by, Ryan Benzel found a way to throw one together.

The 29-year old head professional at Mill Creek Country Club and former standout for Ritzville High School and the University of Idaho, tamed the 6,255-yard, par-71 Canyon layout – which was playing uncharacteristically hard and fast – with an opening round of 7-under par 64 to take the first-day lead in the 21st annual Rosauers Open golf tournament.

Benzel, who won the Pacific Northwest PGA’s richest event in 2005, offset his lone bogey of the day on hole No. 14 with six birdies and an eagle-3 on the par-5 second to forge a two-stroke lead over Brian Nosler, a club-fitting pro at Landon Farms Golf Course in Aurora, Ore., heading into today’s second round of the 54-hole event.

Former Ferris High School and University of Arizona star Reid Hatley, who is currently working as an assistant at Hayden Lake Country Club, is another stroke back at 67 and one ahead of nine others, including past champions Jeff Coston and Rob Gibbons, who are bunched at 68.

Among those tied with Coston and Gibbons at 3-under par are Tamarisk (Calif.) Country Club head professional and former Eastern Washington University standout Kyle Kelly, Deer Park Golf Course head professional Craig Schuh and Gonzaga University golf coach Robert Gray.

But Benzel, who has qualified for the 2008 PGA Championship that will be held Aug. 7-10 at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, Mich., firmly established himself as the man to beat by shooting a 5-under par 30 on the front side at Indian Canyon, which is playing to its old configuration during the tournament.

“It was nothing spectacular, but I played pretty solid all day long,” Benzel said. “My front nine was just a little more steady than my back.”

Benzel, who started his round on the 10th hole, birdied the 12th and 13th before making a bogey-5 on the difficult 438-yard 14th. He made the turn at 2-under 34 and then kick started his back nine by rolling in a 20-foot downhill putt for an eagle-3 on the short, par-5 second.

Nosler, playing in the Rosauers for the first time as a professional, also started on No. 10 and got off to a rocky start by making bogey on the 14th and 16th holes. But he made amends for his early transgressions with a birdie-eagle finish on his front nine and then added three birdies on the back to keep Benzel in sight.

“I drove it well today and hit a lot of good iron shots, which was kind of surprising,” Nosler said. “The last few weeks I’ve been really struggling with my game. I know my pro-am partners back home wouldn’t believe what I shot today.”

Hatley, who is also playing professionally in the Rosauers for the first time, used eagles on the par-5 12th and par-5 18th to offset a two-stroke lost-ball penalty on No. 2 and keep himself in contention.

Good morning,

I’m back from another couple of weeks of vacation, rejuvenated and ready to welcome one of my favorite weeks of the summer.

The Rosauers Open started this morning with the first day of competition in the tournament’s two-day pro-am event. The 54-hole tournament proper starts on Friday and I get paid to watch and report on golf for three days.

I will be filing stories from the Rosauers in the S-R on Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings and link to those stories on this blog.

In the meantime, I filed this story on defending Rosauers champion Cody Upham, the only amateur to ever win the event, and all of the questions he has about his golf game as he prepares to defend his title.

My golf column that will appear in Saturday’s S-R deals with the fear factor many of us face when stepping to the tee box on certain holes.

I’ve included a tongue-in-cheek list of what I consider to be the 10 toughest tee shots here in the Inland Northwest, and you can take a look of the unedited verstion of the column below.

Also, feel free to submit your own comments and lists of holes that don’t quite fit your eye from the tee box.

NOW THAT’S INTIMIDATION

Step up to the tee box on certain golf holes and things just feel right.

Maybe it’s the way the hole fits your eye. Or the shape of the shot you’re most comfortable with – which, in my case, is a high and often-times overly aggressive fade.

Past experiences can sometime play a part as well.

But whatever the cause, you suddenly feel comfortable, in control and capable of blocking out whatever evils might lurk between you and the green.

Unfortunately, views from certain other tee boxes can generate completely different kinds of feelings, with dread being one of the first to come to mind.

And again, past experiences – especially those negative ones that I tend to stumble onto far too frequently – can impact your confidence and the trepidation you feel on those particular holes as much as anything.

With that in mind, I present my own personal list of the ten more intimidating tee shots in the Inland Northwest:

10. NO. 13 AT THE CREEK AT QUALCHAN

Sorry, but I can’t force myself to put together any list of suspect golf holes without including this 333-yard ogre of a par 4. Actually, once you complete your reading assignment, learn just how “interesting” and “challenging” the hole is and step to the tee, there isn’t much – visually, at least – to chill your blood. What ratchets up the intimidation factor is the realization that any tee shot not blasted left into the trees is destined to end up in the same 20-foot circle at the base of the hill where 85 percent of all tee shots seem to gather.

Which means there’s a good chance you’ll be hitting your short approach shot to a narrow, elevated green out of a fresh divot.

9. NO. 17 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

This devilish par-3 stretches 232 yards from the back tees and plays along a narrow ridge that falls off dramatically on both sides. Hit it a little left and your ball ends up back on the 16th fairway. Hit it right and your ball rolls out of bounds, down another steep grade and into a . . . actually, I’m not sure what’s over there.

I’ve hit several tee shots to the right off this hole but have never had enough nerve to venture to the edge of the precipice to see where they’ve ended up.

8. NO. 3 AT DOWNRIVER

As the trees just beyond and to the left of the elevated tee box on this 366-yard par-4 continue to grow, trying to land a fade on its knife-narrow fairway becomes less and less of an option – especially with all of the trees on the right. The correct play off the tee, according to the advice offered anonymously on Downriver’s website, is to play it safe and use a club that will get you to the 150-yard marker.

So if you want to spend your $23 to hit that kind of shot, go ahead. Me? I prefer to aim right with my driver and hitch my hopes on being able to generate one of the three draws I tend hit each summer.

7. NO. 12 AT ESMERALDA

The visual from the tee box, which sits some 50-60 feet above the green on the 159-yard par-3, is scary enough. A bunker guards the left side of the putting surface and any tee shot that rolls off the back of the green can be a bear to get up and down. But what makes the tee shot a real nightmare is the walk back down the steep grade – hoping all the while that you don’t step on a loose stone or railroad tie and tear an ACL.

Good luck, and happy knee surgery.

6. NO. 8 AT DOWNRIVER

As I pointed out earlier, past experiences can play a big role in shaping your mindset as you approach the tee on certain holes – even relatively tame looking par-3s like this 216-yarder.

So anyone who remembers the column I wrote last summer about making a 12 from the bunker here during a pro-am tournament should need no further explanation.

The second of three special golf sections the S-R publishes each year was inserted in this morning’s paper.

Included was this story I wrote on the $4.8 million facelift that Spokane County officials have proposed for Liberty Lake Golf Course.

Without being able to see the diagram of the master plan that ran with the story in the paper, it might be difficult to get a visual picture of some of the proposed changes. But anyone wishing to comment on the major remodeling plan — whether they’ve seen the master plan diagram or not — can do so here.

In addition, the special section contained this travel piece written by Vince Grippi about his recent golfing excursion to Disney World in Orlando, and this Jim Meehan story about locals who have played Torrey Pines South, the public course that will serve as the host venue for this year’s U.S. Open Championship (June 9-15).

Again, feel free to comment on either story, especially those of you who might have additional Torrey Pines experiences to share.

Are you ready for some golf?

Apparently a lot of people are, because every course I checked with over the phone today reported extensive play.

The grandkids will keep me off the links this weekend, but after that, look out!

I spent much of my Friday afternoon running down major changes in pro-shop personnel at the many public courses in our region. You can read an unedited version of my column that will address the matter in Saturday morning’s S-R by clicking on the extended entry line below.

And I’ve also included some links to a couple of other golf-related items you might find interesting — although I’m not seeing the humor in the Big Daddy Driver.