A Windfall Oakmont Didn’t Need : Downed Trees Are Cleaned Up With LPGA Tournament Near

GLENDALE — Less than a month before the inaugural $650,000 Los Angeles Women’s Championship, workers at Oakmont Country Club are just finishing the awesome task of repairing damage from recent windstorms.

The 69-year-old course was battered by high winds that scoured Southern California almost two weeks ago. More than 50 trees--including large eucalyptus, cypress and oak--were scattered across fairways like giant pick-up sticks.

“It looked like a tornado came through,” said Julie Malcomb, a production assistant for the upcoming LPGA event. “There were trees down in front of the clubhouse. We couldn’t get in or out because the trees had knocked power lines down.”

Club officials are confident that all of the fallen trees will be removed before the tournament begins on Feb. 13. But golfers who played the recently reopened course suggest that some of the damage is not so easily repaired.

“Some of the holes had doglegs,” said Dick Davis, an Oakmont member for 23 years. “The main obstacle before would be a big oak tree in the way, but those are gone now so you have a direct shot at the hole.”

The winds, produced by a collision of whirling pressure systems, hit on Jan. 6 and roared in gusts of up to 77 mph through the night. A man was fatally crushed by a falling tree in Sunland and more than a dozen big trucks flipped on Southern California freeways.

At Oakmont, general manager Steve Hockett was reminded of New Year’s Eve 1995, when he nervously sat inside the clubhouse at 1 a.m. while wind tore at the metal roof. This storm, he said, was worse.

“It’s quite an eerie feeling when you see a 100-foot eucalyptus laying on its side across the fairway,” Hockett said.

The storm struck at an especially inopportune time. Just last May, Oakmont officials announced that the LPGA would be returning to their country club for the first time since 1987.

The new event helps fill a six- to seven-week gap that many considered a detriment to the tour. It is expected to attract all the top players.

“There was concern on our part,” said Barb Trammell, the LPGA’s assistant director of tournament operations. “We had heard rumors to the effect that there was a lot of damage.”

Behind the 13th hole, inside a trailer that serves as the tournament office, Hockett cracked a morose joke to Malcomb: “Looks like we’re going to have to make it a nine-hole tournament.”

But after the wind died down, he quickly gathered an army that included “the greens crew and the whole golf shop and all the cart guys.” Armed with chain saws, mulchers and garden tools, they set to work.

While none of the greens or tees were harmed, many fairways were obstructed. Small trees were simply pushed aside. Large trees had to be cut into manageable pieces and ground into sawdust. Specialists sprayed damaged trunks and limbs susceptible to fungus, Malcomb said.

A handful of members, including Davis, showed up to survey the rescue effort. Hockett put them to work, too.

“It looked like a battlefield out there,” Davis said. “We raked leaves and cleared out the driving range so we could have a place for the members to at least hit a few balls.”

The course reopened last week and, despite the loss of so many trees, Hockett insists that it remains just as difficult to play. Trammell said that the LPGA’s fears have been eased.

“They assured us it was just a matter of cleaning up,” she said. “They’ll probably be finishing right about the time we get out there.”

Even Davis conceded that the storm made Oakmont tougher in some ways. Along the 15th hole, a line of trees used to keep wayward shots out of a flood-control ravine that members refer to as “the barranca.”

“Now if you hit a slice,” he said, “the ball might go into the barranca instead of bouncing back onto the fairway.”