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81st New Year's Invitational drawing tough field

By DAVE THEALL
Published December 31, 2006

The 81st annual New Year's Invitational at St. Petersburg Country Club will have another all-star cast.

The oldest tournament is the South gets underway on Thursday and continues through Sunday when the final round is played and a new - or perhaps repeat - champion is crowned.

In recent years the winners have gone on to have more success, such as John Holmes of Kentucky in 2003, Brandt Snedeker of Vanderbilt in '04 and Jeff Overton of Indiana in '05.

This year's tournament will have defending champion Luke List of Vanderbilt as well as '06 runnerup Jonathan Mount of the University of Tennessee.

List is a former U.S. Amateur runnerup who made the cut in the 2005 Masters. He entered last year's final round a stroke behind Bermuda's Eric West, but his final round of 1-under 71 and 281 total was good enough for a two-stroke margin over Mount.

Other top-10 finishers returning include Ben Spickard, Mount's teammate at Tennessee, and former Florida Gator Dalton Melnyk of Atlanta, who was third in 2005. He will be accompanied by his brother, Butler.

Gator coach Buddy Alexander, a six-time winner of the Invitational, will have four members of this year's team teeing off. They include Tyler Rucarean, Jessie Mudd, Will Strickler and the coach's son, freshman Tyler Alexander.

Other college standouts include Jon Curran, List's teammate at Vanderbilt; C.D. Hockersmith, Ball State; Chris Rogers, Ole Miss; and Conad Von Borsig, Virginia.

One tournament record that appears to be out of reach is Jeff Klauk's from 2000. He shot 78-68-67-65 for a 21-under 267. Klauk played for Florida Southern.

Tournamant director Richard Hope doesn't discount the possibility that a mid-amateur (25-plus) could factor in. John Corzilius of Venice best fits that description. He won the prestigious tournament in 1993, '97 and 2002.

St. Petersburg native Mike Barbosa, who helped Georgia Tech to a second-place finish at the '05 NCAA Championships before graduating in May, is also a contender.

The field will again be divided into three groups: open division, one for mid-amateurs and seniors 55 and over.

Melnyk won the mid-am last year. After opening with 8-under 64, he shot 74-70-73 for 186 to beat West by two strokes. This year the competition gets keen with St. Petersburg City Champion Andy Boggini in the field along with Alan Bratton, Bill Duncan, Ryan Cockman, Rick Powers, Chris Covert, Bobby Eggimann and John Veghte.

Doug Root of the host club will to defend the senior title he won last year by 10 strokes over Chris James of Idaho and by 15 over Hope.

Other seniors expected to contend include Mike Sanderson of Homosassa, Don Lucas, '02 senior winner Spencer Gaylord and 1997 winner Phil Leckey of Tampa.

The full field of 132 includes 95 players with handicaps of 2 or less, Hope said. The seniors will play from the white tees with a course length of 6,228 yards and the others from the blue tees (6,718).

"The golf course is in very good shape right now," Hope added. "We're also hoping for favorable weather, but we'll take anything but rain."

Tee-off time is 11 a.m. Thursday through Saturday and 9:30 Sunday.

COLLEGE NOTES: Florida is ranked No. 1 in the nation by Golfweek. The Gators are led by Billy Horschel, who shot 9-under 62 in the recent College All-American Classic in El Paso, Texas. His 54-hole score of 200 was second to Chris Kirk of Georgia and two better than List, who also posted 62 in the tournament on his way to third place. Florida, Georgia and defending champion Oklahoma State are among the favorites for the NCAA Championships, which will be May 30-June 1 in Williamsburg, Va.

- Brittany Jones (East Lake) was the No. 1 player at Youngstown State again this fall averaging 80.0 with a low round of 76. Academically, the middle childhood education major had straight As for the first semester. During this break, she's practicing at her club, East Lake Woodlands, where she won the women's title as a high school senior.

The Penguins resume the season in March with tournaments in Orlando and Jacksonville.

JUNIORS: Golfweek lists Dakoda Dowd of Palm Harbor as the No. 57 junior girl. Other Pinellas girls are Andrea Messer, No. 66; Evan Jensen, 69th; Courtney Harter, 133th; and Whitney Wenglasz, 154th. Rankings are based on selected tournaments. No Pinellas boys made the top 175.

PINELLAS INTERCLUB: Belleair will host the January match on the 18th.

POSTPONEMENT: The Father-Son tournament scheduled for this week at Tarpon Woods has been indefinitely postponed.

[Last modified December 30, 2006, 21:51:04]