Advertisement

Golf: Big Canyon members, staff prepared plenty for U.S. Senior Am

Share

Warren Caves has been a member at Big Canyon Country Club for 40 years. He has seen many events take place at the private Newport Beach golf course known for also hosting such players/celebrities as Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan.

But the event this week at Big C is the biggest of them all, Caves says. It’s the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, which starts Saturday and ends Thursday.

“No question whatsoever, this is the biggest and the most prominent of them all,” Caves said of the United State Golf Assn. event. “It’s been a lot of work, but it has been very satisfying.”

Advertisement

Caves, the co-chair of the U.S. Senior Am, played in the event in 2009 at Beverly Country Club in Chicago. That’s where Caves studied the event as he knew Big Canyon had formally requested to host a U.S. Senior Am. It wasn’t until the next year it became reality.

Caves and several other members at Big Canyon went to work to prepare for the event. Preparations included raising money, educating the members about hosting the event and gathering local sponsors.

Back in May, Big Canyon held a fundraising gala. The event, which included dinner and a round of golf, was $1,500 per person.

Caves said about 100 players were on the course. There was also a live auction and a hole-in-one contest in which some were charged $100 to enter. The prize for the hole-in-one was a Rolls Royce from Rolls Royce of Orange County.

No one aced the hole, but the one closest to the pin won a free night on the town that included dinner, a hotel stay and a car and driver of a Rolls Royce.

The money raised also helped the Southern California Golf Assn. Youth on Course program, as Big Canyon partnered with it for the U.S. Senior Am.

“The gala was billed to be a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun,” Caves said. “Natalie Gulbis is a member here. I can’t say enough about her. She was a speaker at the event. She just gives back and she’s a terrific asset to this club.”

There will be plenty thanks to go around this week at the U.S. Senior Am. The shout-outs started Friday night with a special dinner. There will be another exclusive dinner Saturday night and on Tuesday night a banquet for the final 16 and their families.

A lot of work, indeed, goes into the preparations of the event. There are committees and subcommittees, volunteers and co-chairs.

Everyone involved knew the importance of the event. Hosting a USGA event puts the club into a higher tier, Caves said.

“It’s a big job,” Caves said. “I’m not sure any other club would want to take it on. It’s been a bigger project than we anticipated. We’ve became more engaged. We’ve became more committed. But overall it’s been great.”

Advertisement