Matt Jarvis signed his scorecard outside the club house at San
Jose Municipal Golf Course, glanced at his name penciled next to
the third-lowest number on the leaderboard and started walking back
into the sunset toward the 18th green
SAN JOSE
Matt Jarvis signed his scorecard outside the club house at San Jose Municipal Golf Course, glanced at his name penciled next to the third-lowest number on the leaderboard and started walking back into the sunset toward the 18th green.
The Live Oak sophomore had played remarkably on the back nine to finish 4-over-par 76 in the Blossom Valley Athletic League Individual Championship and all but guarantee himself a first trip to the Central Coast Section Regionals. Jarvis held off on the celebration. It would not be the way he pictured it.
“I don’t know about Cameron,” he said. “I’d love to see him and my brother make it. It’d be great if we all could.”
Three groups back, Michael Jarvis was poised to qualify after sinking birdie putts on Nos. 9, 12 and 14. He would make the cut at 79, good for seventh in a field of 40 players, only after the Jarvis twins’ inspiration fell short at 82.
It was the biggest tournament of the season at the time, and Cameron Moeller had no business playing in it; at least not three weeks ago when he in a hospital bed recovering from surgery to remove an inflamed growth from his lower intestine. He was the Acorns’ top player at the time with a nine-hole average of 43 and did not know when he would play again.
The growth, known as Meckel’s diverticulum, occurs in approximately 2 percent of the population and rarely gives way to symptoms, which include severe abdominal discomfort. Moeller, an easy-going 5-foot-4 sophomore with shaggy hair, discovered he was part of that 2 percent on April 11. He was practicing at Coyote Creek Golf Club when he began feeling sharp pains around his stomach. Similar aches had come and gone in the last four days but nothing like this.
“It got really bad,” he said before Tuesday’s round, pausing between each word. “I had to go to the hospital, then the emergency room … it was kind of scary. It was good we caught it when we did and found out what it was because, otherwise, it could have gotten really bad.”
Successful surgery left Moeller on the mend in less than a day, but a return to golf this prep season seemed out of the question.
“It weighed on him a lot,” his father, Chris, said. “He’s a good kid. He studies hard. Golf doesn’t really dominate his life, but it’s something he really enjoys doing and wants to pursue in college.”
Though the Acorns were mainly concerned with their teammate’s health, the loss of Moeller could not have come at a worse time. Live Oak was on pace for its best finish in the Mount Hamilton Division at 6-3 with three weeks left in the regular season.
The Acorns did not fade. They did the opposite, winning their final four matches to secure second place and a berth in the BVAL Team Playoffs. Their remaining top five scorers bettered their averages as Matt Jarvis shaved off two strokes in the top spot, Michael Jarvis dropped four strokes at No. 2, and Marc Noble, Ben Hartl and Gordon Gunther improved by five, six and seven strokes, respectively.
“I think it inspired them,” Live Oak coach Tom Sumpter said. “They all knew they needed to score well without Cameron.”
That approach didn’t change for Monday’s team playoffs at Spring Valley Golf Course even with Moeller back for the first time since his surgery. He played 18 holes the previous day and felt slight discomfort but not enough to keep him from trying to help the Acorns win the tournament and thus qualify for sectionals as a team.
Matt Jarvis fired 4-over-par 76 to tie for medalist honors, and Hartl came through with 81, followed by Moeller at 82. Live Oak led through five holes but finished second at 422, four strokes behind Santa Teresa Division champion Willow Glen.
“We weren’t happy with that at all,” Matt Jarvis said. “Especially with the way I shot; I thought for sure we’d take it. I knew we could going in.”
Wearing the same outfit he wore Monday for good luck, Matt Jarvis churned in an identically solid effort Tuesday with birdies on the par-3 fourth and 12th holes and the par-4 10th. He completed an up and down for a par 4 on the 405-yard 15th.
“That was probably my best hole,” he said. “After that, I knew I was in the zone.”
Michael Jarvis caught his second wind on No. 14 when he drained a 15-foot putt for birdie.
“It felt like things were coming together,” he said.
Such performances are commonplace for the Jarvis family, which produced a CCS standout-turned professional in Kevin Jarvis during the late 1990s. The twins are determined to follow their half-brother’s success at Live Oak and, like Moeller, want to play at the collegiate level.
“They’re off to a good start,” said Art Jarvis, father of Kevin, Matt and Michael. “I’m really proud of them.”
Watching Matt Jarvis wait for Moeller to finish on No. 18, Sumpter looked like a kid showing off his new bike.
“They feed off each other,” he said. “That’s the beautiful thing about this group, the Jarvises and Cameron; they’re so young, but they’re already pushing each other to become solid golfers. They already are in my opinion.”
Matt Jarvis and Moeller eventually caught up afterward, talking as men typically do after a round of golf. Moeller had only bad news. Three weeks removed from surgery, he finished 12 over and would not make the cut. Live Oak junior Marc Noble missed it as well at 93.
“I was really hoping they could have made it, too,” Michael Jarvis said. “We’re happy, but it definitely could have ended better.”
Pending Live Oak receives an unlikely at-large team invite, the twins will be the lone Acorns competing in regionals Tuesday at Rancho Cañada Golf Club’s West Course.
They won’t be short on inspiration.
