212 Golfers, a $35 Entry Fee and One Night-Shift Champion: Inside the City Amateur

Luis Delgado finished his shift at a distribution warehouse at 6 a.m. on Sunday, drove home, took a shower and was standing on the first tee at Willow Creek Municipal Golf Course by 8:40. Five hours later, the 34-year-old forklift operator made a four-foot par putt on the 18th green to win the City Amateur by one stroke. He celebrated by lifting the trophy, which cost $40 at a local trophy shop, and then asking whether anyone knew a good place nearby for pancakes.

The City Amateur is not the kind of golf tournament that appears on television. It is played every September at the city’s busiest public course, a flat, tree-lined layout where a weekend round costs $38 with a cart and the starter knows most regulars by first name. The entry fee this year was $35, which covered two rounds, a box lunch and a sleeve of golf balls. It drew 212 players, the largest field in the event’s 61-year history.

A tournament built for everyone

The event began in 1964 as a way for golfers who could not afford private club memberships to play in a serious competition. That mission has not changed much. Anyone who lives in the county and holds a handicap index can enter, and there are separate flights for different skill levels, so a 25-handicapper has as much chance at a trophy as a former college player.

This year’s field included a 15-year-old high school sophomore, an 81-year-old retired math teacher who has played in 52 City Amateurs, three pairs of fathers and sons, and a group of nurses from the county hospital who entered together as a team bet. More than 40 players were entering their first tournament of any kind.

“We want it to feel like a real championship and a neighborhood barbecue at the same time,” said tournament director Carol Haynes, who has run the event for 11 years. “If you play the best golf of your life, you can win. If you shoot 112, you still get lunch and a story.”

How the championship was won

Delgado entered the final round one shot behind Kevin Doyle, a 24-year-old assistant golf professional at a public course across town and the tournament’s defending champion. Doyle hits the ball farther than almost anyone in the field, and on a course with few hazards, distance is a real advantage.

Delgado’s game is built differently. He learned to play at Willow Creek as a teenager, working weekend shifts in the cart barn in exchange for free range balls, and he knows the course’s small, sloping greens as well as anyone alive. He hit only 11 of 18 greens in regulation on Sunday, but he needed just 26 putts, including a 30-footer for birdie on the 15th hole that gave him the lead for good.

Doyle had one last chance. His approach on 18 stopped 12 feet from the hole, and his birdie putt to force a playoff curled across the left edge of the cup. He walked over and shook Delgado’s hand before the ball had stopped rolling. Delgado finished at 2-under-par 142 for two rounds; Doyle was one stroke behind.

I don’t get to practice much with my schedule. But I’ve putted on these greens since I was fourteen. I know which way every one of them breaks when it’s been dry for a week.

Luis Delgado, City Amateur champion

The other winners

The championship flight got the biggest gallery, but much of the tournament’s charm lives in the other divisions. Among this year’s highlights:

• Senior division: Walter Brennan, 73, won with a two-round total of 158, then announced he would defend the title next year “if my knees agree.”
• Junior division: Sophie Tran, the 15-year-old sophomore, shot 79 on Sunday to win by six strokes and finished tied for 14th overall against the adults.
• First-flight: Raymond Ellis, a bus driver for the city transit system, won on the second playoff hole with a chip-in from behind the green.
• Team prize: The four nurses from the county hospital, playing under the name “Night Shift,” finished second in the team competition and won the award for best costumes, which was not technically an official category.

Then there was Harold Pruitt, the 81-year-old retired teacher, who made a par on the final hole of his 52nd City Amateur and received a standing ovation from the crowd gathered around the 18th green. He has never won the event. He says he has never minded.

The people who make it run

Like most community tournaments, the City Amateur depends almost entirely on volunteers. About 60 people worked this year’s event, keeping score, spotting balls on blind holes, running the lunch table and driving shuttle carts for players in the senior division. Many of them have been doing it for decades.

Margaret Olsen, 70, has run the hand-lettered scoreboard beside the 18th green for 26 years. She updates it with a black marker and a stepladder, and she refuses every offer to replace it with a digital screen. “People like to stand in front of it and argue about the numbers,” she said. “You can’t argue with a television.” The course’s head superintendent, Dale Kim, and his grounds crew of seven spent three weeks preparing Willow Creek, rolling the greens twice a day and adding new tee boxes on four holes. Kim said the fairways were in the best shape he has seen in his nine years at the course, thanks largely to a dry, mild September.

Keeping public golf affordable

The tournament comes during a busy period for public golf across the country. Rounds have increased substantially over the last several years, and many municipal courses have struggled to balance demand with affordable prices and aging infrastructure. Willow Creek raised its weekend rate by $4 this year, its first increase since 2021, to help pay for irrigation repairs.

The city’s parks department says the course hosted about 61,000 rounds last year, more than double its total a decade ago. A junior program offers free lessons to children on Saturday mornings, and the waitlist for spring sessions is already 90 names long. Haynes would like to see the City Amateur help fund that program, and this year it did: proceeds from a closest-to-the-pin contest raised $3,250 for youth golf scholarships.

Back to work

Delgado had a shift scheduled at 10 p.m. on Sunday. He said he planned to sleep for about four hours after his pancakes, then head back to the warehouse, where several coworkers had been following the leaderboard on their phones during breaks. His name will be engraved on a plaque in the Willow Creek clubhouse, next to 60 other champions, by the end of October.

Asked whether a win like this might change anything about his golf, Delgado laughed. “Maybe I’ll buy a new putter,” he said. Then he thought about it. “No. This one just won the City Amateur.”

Registration for next year’s tournament opens in June. The event is limited to 240 players, and organizers expect it to fill quickly.