A field of 156 professional golfers, including 2002 Buick Invitational champion Jose Maria Olazabal, San Diego native Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, who is returning from a knee injury and will be making his first appearance of the year, will take the North and South Courses of Torrey Pines Municipal Golf course, which is hosting the tournament for the 36th-consecutive year Feb. 13 to Feb. 16.
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“”We annually get an excellent field of good players,”” said Tournament Director Tom Wilson. “”We have a great history of winners, too.””
In the 36 years, the invitational has seen a lifetime’s worth of noteworthy history. The Buick Invitational, which chose Torrey Pines as its site because of San Diego’s reliably good golf weather, saw Jack Nicklaus play through a monsoon and double-bogey the final hole to win in 1969, and saw Fuzzy Zoeller return to the course from a trailer where he took cover from a hailstorm on a Sunday afternoon to win his first PGA Tour event in 1979. And in 1993, when Mickelson won his first professional golf tournament at Torrey Pines, he had to recover from a rough opening day when the winds caused an average score of 79 on the South and 77 on the North and shoot 13-under-par in the last 54 holes.
Mickelson, who was a scoreboard bearer at the Buick as a kid, began a tradition for hometown champions in recent years with the first of his three victories at the tournament 10 years ago. San Diegans Craig Stadler and Scott Simpson won the title in 1994 and 1998, respectively.
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Stadler and Simpson, both born in San Diego, grew up playing Torrey Pines as amateur golfers just like athletes of the UCSD golf team are doing. The Tritons use the course’s practice facilities on a regular basis, and UCSD head coach Mike Wydra, who says he has played the South Course over 1,100 times, has taken his team to play at Torrey Pines twice so far this year.
“”We try to play the South Course,”” Wydra said. “”The North Course is a little bit easier.””
The par-72 North Course measures just 6,874 yards, while the more challenging South Course (par 72) is 7,607 yards. Because it features fewer bunkers and shorter holes, each golfer in the field of the Buick will play just one round on the North Course on either Thursday or Friday of the 72-hole event.
In fact, the South Course was renovated in 2002 to make it more difficult, hopefully catching the eye of the PGA Tour and convincing it to bring the 2008 U.S. Open to Torrey Pines. The 18-hole course took a major facelift when the “”U.S. Open Doctor”” Rees Jones, who helped remodel Bethpage, the host of the 2002 U.S. Open, completely renovated the South Course to lengthen almost every hole, redesign and add 77 brand new bunkers, and recontour greens. As a result, the PGA Tour has recently announced that the South Course will be the site of the 2008 U.S. Open.
“”They play a PGA Tour event there every year,”” Wydra said about the Torrey Pines Golf Course. “”You get to test your skills on a course that the pros play. And now the U.S. Open is coming here. That makes it even more important.””
Wydra said he is going to take this rare opportunity of having professionals playing at a local course to try to learn from watching them. He has assigned each golfer on the UCSD golf team to follow a PGA player at the Buick Invitational who has a similar body type or swing style to that of the amateur player.
Torrey Pines treats golf fans with its capacity to attract the likes of Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, but that is not it’s true charm.
“”It’s the climate, the ocean and the torrey pine,”” said golf course starter Miguel Castillo about some of the course’s attractions. “”It’s the whole ocean thing — can’t duplicate it.””
Although the forecast for the upcoming week calls for scattered showers on Feb. 14 and Feb. 16, golfers could never be disappointed with the atmosphere at Torrey Pines, or the breathtaking views of downtown La Jolla and the Pacific Ocean from the top of the cliffs behind the green on No. 12 of the South Course, or from the tee box of No. 4 on championship course, no matter how gloomy the sky might be.
“”Being on a cliff side, next to the Pacific Ocean. Doesn’t get any better than that,”” Wilson said about La Jolla’s major attraction. “”Not many like it.””
The opening round of the 2003 Buick Invitational on the North and South Courses starts at 8 a.m. on Feb. 13. Tickets at the gate are $20 for Feb. 13 and Feb. 14, and $25 for Feb. 15 and Feb. 16. However, the Triton golf team is providing tickets for UCSD students for $12 at the Price Center Box Office.
