The Pacific Coast Amateur Returns To Capilano And Evokes Memories Of Some Great Play By James Lepp
James Lepp Tees Off In The 2006 RBC Canadian Open - Image Credit Graig Abel Photography/Golf Canada
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Bryan Adams sang about the Summer of ’69. James Lepp occasionally reminisces about the Summer of 2003. After all, those were the best golfing days of his life.
Lepp got to thinking about them just the other day when he joined some friends and played Capilano Golf & Country Club in West Vancouver.
The scenic Stanley Thompson gem was a big part of that special summer.
Lepp didn’t just win the prestigious Pacific Coast Amateur Championship that year at Capilano, he crushed a field that included future PGA TOUR winners Ryan Moore and Parker McLaughlin. The then 19-year-old fired rounds of 68, 62, 66 and 67 to win by 10 shots at Capilano, which is once again playing host to the Pacific Coast Amateur July 25-28.
As impressive as that win was, Lepp thinks the one that preceded it was an even bigger accomplishment. The week before the Pacific Coast Amateur, Lepp won the Canadian Tour’s Greater Vancouver Classic at Swaneset Bay in Pitt Meadows by five shots.
“I think it was a bigger win because you are playing against pros,” Lepp said in an interview. “The field was stronger, even though it was a Canadian Tour event. “Nothing against the Pac Coast, but when you are a 19-year-old amateur, winning a pro event like that is going to be more impressive than winning an amateur event, aside from something like the U.S. Amateur.”
Lepp’s super summer had started with his second of four straight B.C. Amateur Championship victories, this one coming at Lakepoint Golf Course in Fort St. John. He won those three events by a combined margin of 19 strokes. His cumulative score was 48-under par.
Asked if was the best stretch of golf in his life, Lepp said, “Undoubtedly.” Golf seemed easy back then for Lepp, who turned pro a couple of years later after graduating with a business degree from the University of Washington. But he was never quite able to recapture the magic of that summer of 2003.
Lepp thinks a number of factors contributed to that incredible stretch of golf he had 20 years ago. “It could have been a combination of things,” he said. “Maybe my age, you are kind of like in full athletic mode, so I was swinging as fast as I could as a 19-year-old. I was a little fearless, a little bit naive, a little bit overconfident, if you will. For me, any time I was playing well all I needed was one little key and that would give me confidence and I would play well.
Image Credit Bryan Outram
Going Down A New Road, Lepp Launched His Kikkor Shoe Company In 2010
“During that stretch it was probably one key that I was focused on and it gave me all the confidence. And as my career went on those keys would still be there, but they would last shorter and shorter until finally it could last one shot versus three weeks.”
All of that confidence that Lepp had in spades as a 19-year-old disappeared early in his pro career when he began to develop the yips with his driver. These days, Lepp’s golf is mainly limited to what his buddies have labelled ‘Leppathons,’ when he and two or three groups of friends get together once a week to play his home course, Ledgeview Golf Club in Abbotsford.
“Generally, I don’t like playing golf because I am playing so bad,” he said. “Golf is not like it was 20 years ago. It’s taxing, it’s hard and I don’t enjoy it that much.”
Lepp did enjoy that week at Capliano, especially the 62 he shot In the second round. It remains the competitive course record at Capilano. Lepp, a former meteorology major, credited cloud formations that day with helping him go low. “I think the key is cloudy weather,” Lepp said after that round.
“I play really good when it’s cloudy because when you get shadows in the sun you can’t see the face of a driver and stuff like that. When it’s cloudy you get light from everywhere and you can see the face of the club. I just get a good feeling when I can see it . . .I saw it was cloudy today and I said, ‘that’s good news.’”
Lepp was also draining putts from all over the place that day. He made two long bombs on the sixth and 13th holes. The first was more than 60 feet and the second on No. 13 was a downhill 45-footer with about 15 feet of break. “I just remember being confident that summer and golf seeming easy, considering what it is like now,” Lepp said.
Lepp recently played Capilano with fellow University of Washington graduate Kevin Spooner and two other friends. Lepp did something he did not do during those four rounds 20 years ago. He took time to admire and appreciate the epic views Capilano offers from its fairways.
“What I like about Cap is the vistas that are just absolutely breathtaking,” he said. “As you get older you appreciate those things a lot more. I wouldn’t have even noticed it all that much when I was 19. All I cared about was kicking other players’ butts and playing good. I just wanted to shoot as low as I could.”
And for that one special summer 20 years ago, Lepp did just that nearly every time he teed it up.
CHIP SHOTS: Nolan Thoroughgood of Victoria, Cooper Humphreys of Vernon and Alex Zhang of Richmond will represent British Columbia Golf in the Morse Cup team competition at the Pacific Coast Amateur. . .British Columbia’s only Morse Cup win came in 2003 when the team of Lepp, Craig Doell of Victoria and Dan Swanson of Surrey won by nine shots. . .Lepp is now concentrated on his business career. He and his wife Francis, a lawyer, have created velnue.ca, which offers a selection of essential oil diffusers, dispensers, foaming hand sanitizers and other products which their website says are designed to, “Help you create the most welcoming home imaginable.”