Richard Dunn
Unlike most players, the competition got easier for Kelly Manos
once he finished playing local junior golf tournaments.
In fact, during one humbling experience, Manos was 16 and an all-league
high school golfer, when he lost by one stroke to a 5-year-old kid. His
name was Eldrick "Tiger" Woods.
While both have come a long way since their junior golf days together,
they still see each other at Big Canyon, where Manos has been the head
professional since May 1999 and Woods is an honorary member who tees it
up when he's in town.
"I still like to needle Kelly about it, the fact he got beat by a
5-year-old," Mesa Verde Country Club head pro Tom Sargent once said,
referring to the days in the early 1980s when Manos grew up playing with
Woods at Heartwell Golf Course in Long Beach.
Manos, who got his start in the business when Sargent hired him at Yorba
Linda Country Club in 1990, has carved his own niche in the golf world
during the past decade, including winning the 1996 Southern California
PGA sectional championship for club professionals and earning a
prestigious position at the most exclusive club in Orange County.
Manos, a former USC standout, doesn't play as much as he used to with his
new set of responsibilities as head pro, but the 34-year-old Costa Mesa
resident is living a club pro's dream.
"I don't ever want to leave," said Manos, hired at Big Canyon as a first
assistant to Bob Lovejoy in February 1995, after five years at Yorba
Linda.
Manos now spends more time in front of a computer screen, managing a
staff of 25, attending meetings and shuffling paperwork.
On the course, his club pro highlight was capturing the SCPGA sectional
title, which rewarded him with spots in three PGA Tour events in 1997 --
the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines and
the Nissan Open at Riviera, where Manos made the cut.
"That was the main thing as a club pro," Manos said. "Don't get me wrong,
I want to win. But realistically, as a club pro, you just want to play on
the weekend."
Manos, who shot 73-71-73-73 at the '97 Nissan Open and finished 70th,
played with Ed Dougherty and John Maginnes in the third round and Duffy
Waldorf in the final round. "It was cool," said Manos.
Manos, who also played in the Nike Tour event at Moreno Valley in '97,
tried the mini-tour for one year after college, but found putting for
dough much tougher than hitting for show.
"They weren't my better years, that's for sure," Manos said. "I think
