Andrew Perez goes after the Santa Barbara “double” this weekend as he competes in the 50th annual Santa Barbara Classic golf tournament.
Perez, who won the City championship in May, is playing with Brandon Gama in the two-man, best-ball, 36-hole event, which runs Saturday and Sunday at the Santa Barbara Golf Club.
The last player to win both titles in the same year was former UCSB golfer Anthony Verna in 2006.
Perez has been on a roll this year. The 2008 CIF-SS individual champion from Santa Barbara High, has captured the Oxnard, Los Angeles, Simi Valley and Santa Barbara city tournaments and finished runner-up in the Goleta tourney, losing in a playoff to Laguna Blanca graduate Niall Platt.
Gama, a former Bishop Diego and City College standout, was the Santa Barbara City champion in 2008 with a record score of 193 and finished runner-up in the Classic last year with John Gilles.
Other teams expected to challenge for the perpetual trophy include the Division-1 college-bound duo of Jack Perry (Northwestern) from Santa Barbara High and Platt (Notre Dame); former U.S. Mid-Amateur champ and 2008 winner Kevin Marsh and partner George Downing and the 11-time Classic championship combo of Steve Lass and John Pate.
Lass, UCSB’s golf coach, is the tournament’s all-time winner with 13 titles, 11 with Pate (their first in 1987 and most recent in 2007) and two with Scott Helton in 2003-04. Pate’s won 12 titles. His first was back in 1985 with Sam Randolph Jr.
The defending champion is the team of Brett Mormann and Albert Corral. They won with a 15-under 125.
The 36-hole tournament scoring record is 121, set by Fred Shoemaker and Jim Hopper in 1976. They also shot the single-round record of 57 that year.
Those records could be in jeopardy this weekend as the cool, damp weather have softened the greens.
“The course is in fabulous shape. The weather has been helpful,” said David Sparkes, who is in his third year of running the tournament with Vic Giglio and Mike Atchley. “I expect the first-day leaders to be eight or nine under.”
The tournament has 85 teams broken into four flights. The A and B Flights will tee off at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. The times are opposite for the C and D flights.
The A Flight will use gross scoring and the other divisions will be determined by net scores, said Sparkes.
