Mirror Pond Invitational set to tee off today
Published: June 20. 2009 4:00AM PST
After taking a year off, a local golf tradition is back.
The Mirror Pond Invitational, an all-male amateur tournament that began in the 1950s, will tee off today at Bend Golf & Country Club. The tournament concludes on Sunday. The Mirror Pond was scratched last summer so Bend G&CC could host the Oregon Amateur Championship. But despite the one-year hiatus, this year’s tournament will have a near-capacity field of 120 golfers.
“I was really hopeful that people would still want to do it,” says Erik Nielsen, the head pro at Bend G&CC.
The longest-running golf tournament in Central Oregon, the Mirror Pond will include a handful of top amateurs from around the state competing in the 36-hole stroke-play tournament.
More than half the players in the expected field are single-digit handicappers, and some will be competing at next week’s 100th Oregon Amateur Championship at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the southern Oregon Coast.
Among them will be Andrew Vijarro, a Bend High School graduate and soon-to-be sophomore at the University of Oregon.
Vijarro, a plus-4 handicap, has the lowest handicap in the field and knows well Bend G&CC, the home course of Bend High.
Matt Jacobsen, a former UO golfer from Portland and the nephew of PGA Tour pro Peter Jacobsen, will be there to challenge Vijarro.
Locals such as 2005 Mirror Pond champion Brad Mombert, of Bend, and Sunriver’s Cary Watson, who advanced to match play in the 2008 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, will also be among the elite golfers in the field.
“We have a really good field,” says Nielsen. “It’s a very good tuneup for the Oregon Am.”
Brandon Kearney, of Bend, won the last Mirror Pond Invitational in 2007. Kearney turned professional later that year and is ineligible to defend his title this year.
He will, however, be on the course to caddie for his father, Dick, who is traveling from his home near San Diego to play in the tournament.
Play begins each day at 7:45 a.m., and the final groups are scheduled to finish at about 5 p.m. On Sunday, the tournament leaders following Saturday’s round will tee off last.
Spectators are welcome to attend the event at no charge, but proper golf attire is required.
Zack Hall can be reached at 541-617-7868 or at zhall@bendbulletin.com.
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