156 of the state’s top amateurs showed up at Big Canyon CC in Newport Beach and attempted to outduel each other in hopes of getting their name engraved on the Edward B. Tufts trophy.
The lone survivor of the grueling week and the winner of the 111th California Amateur Championship is Charlie Reiter, of Palm Desert.
Reiter defeated Kevin Huff, of El Dorado Hills, 5 & 4, in a 36-hole final match in which he never trailed.
The front nine of the morning session was a tightly contested seesaw battle that ended with Reiter clinging to a 1UP lead as both players made the turn. From there, the University of San Diego standout dropped a cinder block on the gas pedal and won six holes on the back to take a commanding 6UP lead into the lunchbreak.
Reiter’s late-morning dominance was not a byproduct of poor play from his opponent. Huff was hitting good shots and getting around the course like a finalist who outlasted 154 others. But Reiter was dialed into another level of golf. His drives were blistered north of 320 yards, his irons were tight, and his flatstick had smoke coming off the face. And unless he was going to order a turkey sandwich loaded with tryptophan for lunch—nothing was going to slow him down. And nothing did.
Reiter’s 6UP advantage coming out the break would quickly stretch to seven after Huff laid up on the par-five No. 2 only to dump his approach into the water. Reiter then seized on Huff’s misplay in the bunker on the very next hole and got the match to 8UP. Two holes later and Reiter was a 9UP with 13 to play.
The San Diego Torero and the Fresno State Bulldog would go on to halve the next three holes giving Reiter a chance to close out the match without needing to make the turn in the afternoon session. But an errant tee shot led to a drop and Reiter lost his first hole going all the way back to No. 15, hours earlier. After 27 holes, Reiter still had a stranglehold on the championship, 8UP with nine to play.
But then the tides turned in the most unexpected ways. Reiter, who had seemed bulletproof since the minute he laced-up his FootJoys, suddenly started to crack. And Huff, who seemed on the ropes since before the gallery finished their first cup of coffee, started to punch his way back into the fight.
Up until the 27th hole of the championship final, Huff had only gotten the better of Reiter twice. But then he flipped a switch and took the defibrillator paddles to a match that was on life support by winning four of five holes to cut the deficit nearly in half. Reiter, who was once 9UP with 10 to play, was now 5UP with five to play.
Part of the luxury of building a massive lead is being able to give a lot of it back. And even though Reiter was on the golf course one hour and five holes longer than he wanted to be, he was still in firm command needing only to halve a single hole to permanently stop the bleeding and peel out of Newport Beach with the very same hardware he came so close to winning in 2020.
And that’s exactly what happened when Huff slid a six-foot birdie just by the cup to finally run out of gas once and for all on No. 14, the 32nd hole of the final.
"Finishing second, that wasn't going to happen again," Reiter declared. "We got off to a quick start and I kept it going. It was awesome."
The mountain Reiter had built was so incredibly high that Huff’s amazing late afternoon run didn’t even summit half of it. Reiter also had honors for 24 for the 32 holes played in the final.
"Having honors is very important in match play because you control the tempo. Hitting good drives is tough to follow. But [Kevin Huff] did a good job with it. It was a very good match between both of us."
For Reiter, this was a long time coming and redemption for his runner-up finish at the Cal-Am just two years ago. Now he gets to hold the trophy he nearly won in 2020 and his name will be on there for the rest of time.
Asked how he was going to celebrate, Reiter said with a big smile and a laugh, "I don't know yet. But I'm sure something will go down that I won't remember."
