It was 1985 when Chris Stein last got his crack at a chance to play in the U.S. Open.
He was 22 then, and in the Southern California city of Temecula for the Open sectional qualifier. Stein needed to shoot 3-under-par in his last nine holes to advance.
He didn’t.
“Didn’t quite do it,” Stein said. “But here I am back now.”
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After Monday’s grueling sectional qualifier at Lake Merced Golf Club and TPC Harding Park, it will be quite a short road to this year’s U.S. Open.
About three miles, to be exact.
About 130 golfers, including dozens of local competitors, will tee it up and putt their way through two 18-hole rounds Monday in hopes of qualifying for the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club on June 14-17.
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Despite qualifying for the 2012 U.S. Open sectional qualifier at TPC Harding Park and Lake Merced weeks ago, Andrew Buchanan, the 17-year-old golfing prospect from Menlo School, won’t be teeing it up come Monday.
Buchanan, who won the Central Coast Section boys’ golf title this month, injured his right elbow during a pickup basketball game at a friend’s graduation party Sunday night.
“It’s really a healing process from a bruise,” said Dave Buchanan, Andrew’s father and golf coach at Menlo. “But he’s stiff and it’ll take a couple weeks to get back.”
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Defense may have not led to the 49ers prevailing over the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants during this past season’s NFC Championship Game, but it kept San Francisco in the game.
It kept them in every game.
That was why, during this offseason, 49ers general manager Trent Baalke made every effort to retain the possible free agents that made up the vaunted squad of ball-snatchers and hard hitters.
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In boxing, there perhaps is no better of a word that illustrates a failure of a prizefighter than “bum.”
You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but Melissa McMorrow, a prizefighter, has something of a bum right knee.
Playing soccer from the age of eight through collegiate adulthood can do that.
But her wounded knee aside, McMorrow is no “bum.”
Susi Kentikian, exactly a week ago today, found that out the hard way.
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Denarius Moore, despite his short time in the NFL, appears not to be much of a stickler for media conversations.
But that, however, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Thus far, the second-year Raiders wide receiver has let his gridiron play speak for itself. And to keep a job in the pros, the ability to continuously score far outweighs one’s ability to constantly chatter.
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Pledging violence upon a respected man might be a difficult concept for some to grasp.But 10 combined rounds of malicious caged mayhem can make such a notion an easy one to comprehend.
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In boxing, it helps to have a good right hand — amongst other things.
Karim Mayfield, apparently since the fourth grade, has had a good right hand.
It took the Fillmore district native slugging an older schoolyard bully at Linda Park Elementary in Pacifica to allegedly prove the notion true.
“I was the only black kid in the school ... and this guy was attempting to pick on me and my brother,” Mayfield remembered. “And my brother was like, ‘Just let it go.’”
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Back in January, shortly after his hiring as the Raiders’ coach, Dennis Allen made his football mantra known to anyone who would listen.
“You coach ’em firm, and you coach ’em fair,” is how he vowed to drill his football team.
And during Tuesday’s mid-May workout, the 39-year-old’s declaration spilled out onto the Alameda practice gridiron.
Between three quarterbacks learning the playbook, a healthy Darren McFadden running routes and a rookie receiver demonstrating a pension for hauling in the long pass, Allen, all in all, was pleased.
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What awaits the competitors of the Tour of California is 733.5 miles of paved riding hell.
Tejay van Garderen is one of those riders, and he’s looking forward to it.
“I want to try and get on the podium this year and I think that’s possible,” said van Garderen, a member of BMC Racing. “We’re bringing a strong team with us, especially with guys like George Hincapie and Brent Bookwalter, who know the race well.”
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The appropriateness of Alex Smith’s answer in regards to “rookie advice” could not have been lost on the reporters who huddled around the veteran 49ers quarterback Thursday.
“Don’t let the stage get too big in your mind. This is still football,” Smith said, indirectly counseling standout draftees LaMichael James and A.J. Jenkins. “Things can be overwhelming at first. You’re a rookie in the NFL ... sometimes you can get defeated mentally even before you get out there.”
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Individual accolades alone don’t win championships — or Cups.
Chris Wondolowski, the San Jose Earthquakes’ veteran in his eighth year of professional soccer, knows that all too well.
After consecutive stellar seasons in 2010 and 2011 with the Earthquakes, “Wondo’s” quest of seizing Major League Soccer’s premier prize remains unfulfilled.
“I’m OK with getting nothing as long as we get that MLS Cup,” the San Jose forward said. “That’s the main goal. If we can do that, then that’s when I’ll be satisfied.”
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Townsend Bell isn’t much a fan of watching paint dry, or rather, the feeling of it.
That’s how the then 21-year-old felt while studying business economics at UC Santa Barbara. And it took being strapped into a race car at the Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey to leave that dreadful feeling in his rear view.
“I just decided I wanted to pursue something I was passionate about,” Bell, 37, said, recalling his racing school days at the 2.2-mile Monterey track, before going pro. “In a racing car, that’s where it all began.”
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Four times, Hall of Fame Bay Area-based horse trainer Jerry Hollendorfer has seen the backside of the Kentucky Derby race track, a vicinity reserved for those most familiar with the rigors and rewards of the graded stakes race.
Each of those times, the 65-year-old has attempted to strike gold and nab the coveted Derby trophy and rose garland. And each time, he has come up empty.
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BERKELEY — It’s been a while since C.J. Anderson has seen a Cal spring football game — eight years to be precise. But come Saturday, that drought will end.But the running back won’t be that mere spectator of seasons passed. He’ll be suiting up. “I’m gonna play like it’s a game,” said Anderson, no longer that 13-year-old Vallejo hopeful who religiously followed Cal’s football program growing up. “I know they’re my teammates. You can’t hurt them. But it’s football. It’s a physical sport.”
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