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February
14, 2005
Jim
Seimas: Catching up with Dodie; final thoughts on
AT&T
Former Harbor High golf
standout Dodie Mazzuca, her husband Jim Gregory, and
colleague Dave Maga are featured in a 13-page spread
"Rebuild your game" in the March issue of
Golf Digest.
All three golfers work for Golf Digest schools.
Mazzuca and Gregory are based at Legend Trail Golf
Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
There are 12 photos of Mazzuca in the instructional
segment, 13 if you count the one of her foot alignment
while putting.
"Wasn’t
that cool?" mom Theo Mazzuca said. "She
was looking as cute as can be."
Mazzuca was featured in a past Golf Digest segment,
but the photos were run as cartoon illustrations.
"We’re
moving up," she said of the color photos.
Mazzuca and Gregory were contacted about the spread
shortly after they moved from Las Vegas to Scottsdale
over the summer. They were doing some major house
renovations, including painting, when contacted.
In the "timing" segment of the article,
Mazzuca is shown swinging a paint brush to illustrate
when to release the power in her swing.
"We
didn’t use paint," said Mazzuca, who graduated
Harbor in 1993 and the University of Washington
in ’97. "It was eggnog. But that’s
where we got the brush idea, from working on our
house."
Mazzuca, who competed on the LPGA Tour in 2001 after
placing in the top-3 money list a year earlier on
the Futures Tour, will attempt Q-School for the
seventh time later this year.
"I
know, you haven’t heard that one before,"
she said. "But my game is better than it has
been in a long time."
Mazzuca is playing some of her best golf right now
and is in the best shape of her life. She’s
on a steady diet of yoga and strength training.
Mazzuca will also try and qualify for the Women’s
U.S. Open later this year.
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David Duval shot a 238 total at the AT&T last
week to finish in last place among the golfers
who actually completed three rounds. Four players
withdrew from the event. Duval hasn’t shot
under-par in a PGA event in his past 10 rounds,
which dates to last season.
Mazzuca playfully displayed how she
is the ultimate saleswomen. When told of Duval’s
struggles at Pebble Beach, and the 2005 season in
general, she said: "He needs to come to the Golf
Digest School. We’ll fix him up right. He’ll
get it hopefully ... well, maybe."
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It was power through numbers at the AT&T and "Club
15," located off the 15th tee box at Pebble
Beach, had the house rocking. Boasting a sign
"Professional Support For The Amateur Golfer,"
Club 15 cheered louder for the amateurs than the
pros.
Some ate up the support, like actor/comedian
George Lopez, and others, like San Francisco financial
consultant Charles Schwab, didn’t.
One Club 15 fan yelled, "Atta boy, Chuckyyyyy,"
when he spied Schwab sinking his putt on the 14th
green Saturday. Schwab did a 180 and gave a confused-looking
scowl. Schwab lightened up after his drive on 15,
though, after hearing the another fan yell "My
money’s on Schwab."
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Doglegs aren’t uncommon on golf courses.
But Lopez was extremely surprised when those doglegs,
belonging to a golden retriever named "Snowflake,"
began moving — with Lopez’s ball in
its mouth.
Lopez hit a bad approach shot just
off the green in the third round at Pebble Beach and
Snowflake took it and gave Lopez better positioning
temporarily, then took off when Lopez tried to get
his ball back.
"I
had to chase Snowflake around for a bit to get my
ball back," Lopez said. "That dog exhausted
me man. By the time I got to 17, I could barely
breathe. Snowflake was the real deal.
"I
ended up getting a break out of it with the drop,"
Lopez added. "I’m thinking about having
Snowflake on my bag next year."
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A simple solution for players complaining about
bumpy greens at the AT&T — strengthen your
iron play.
"It’s very important to hit
your chip shots and to hit your first lag putt from
30 feet on out inside two and three feet," Phil
Mickelson said. "Because if you are outside of
three feet, you are much more susceptible to the bounces
and the misses."
Contact
Jim Seimas at jseimas@santacruzsentinel.com.
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