ALL TO DRINK FROM SEAVER CUP.

Byline: GREG WILCOX Golf

Add another matchup to the North-South rivalry.

Thanks to the efforts of the Northern and Southern California Golf Associations, amateur golfers from both areas will play in the inaugural Seaver Cup on Dec. 1 at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa.

The matches are named for Charles Seaver, who has gained legend status among the ranks of California's amateur golfers, and are sponsored by the California Golf Association.

``I'm just very proud and honored to have this recognition. It wasn't expected, but I'm most certainly going to enjoy it to the fullest,'' said Seaver, 87, during a telephone interview from his home in Pebble Beach. ``It's the culmination of things that have been going on since I was 9 years old.''

That was the age at which he entered his first tournament with a 30 handicap. Six years later he won the Los Angeles Country Club Invitational.

In 1933, while a student at Stanford and a member of the Los Angeles club, Seaver won the state amateur title and the NCGA amateur title. A year later he won the SCGA title. He also came within a whisker of a club-to-club confrontation with Bobby Jones, considered to be the greatest amateur golfer ever and the only player ever to win four major titles in the same year.

In the 1930 U.S. Amateur, Seaver, whose son Tom is in the baseball Hall of Fame, lost a semifinal match to Gene Homans. The next day Jones dusted Homans 8 and 7 to complete his grand slam. That effort made Seaver, who played in five events with Jones, the nation's third-ranked amateur player that year.

Seaver also played on the 1932 Walker Cup team at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., when the U.S. crushed Great Britain and Ireland 8 to 1.

He's been active in the Northern California section for years and helped that group put together the deal to buy the land for the NCGA members' course at Poppy Hills.

Robert D. Thomas, editor and publisher of Fore, the SCGA's magazine, said that naming the new competition after Seaver is a good way to honor his long service to the game. And he has ties to both the sections of California.

``First of all he's just a wonderful person. He embodies everything that is great about amateur golf and he just gave so much of his life to this game,'' Thomas said.

Thomas said the biennial intrastate matches will be held in even-numbered years and complement the United States Golf Association's national team championships that will be held in odd-numbered years.

Each side will field eight-man teams. The event will be match play featuring individuals and two-man teams against each other. The teams will feature the state's top amateur players and each will have two seniors. The south team's roster includes all of the section's major championship winners this year. Local players include Keith Kinsel, 29, of Glendale, and Craig Steinberg, 41, of Van Nuys.

Kinsel qualified for the U.S. Open sectional tournament this year and the U.S. Mid-Amateur. He also tied for fifth in the SCGA Mid-Amateur and the state amateur championship. Steinberg won the state amateur four times.

The event is free and open to the public.

Winter special: The Ojai Valley Inn course is offering special winter rates of $79 Monday through Thursday through Dec. 17. The price includes a cart. There is also a twilight special of $64 after 1 p.m. on those days. Seven-day advance reservations are required.

LPGA update: The Ladies Professional Golf Association schedule for 1999 features 43 events and $36.2 million in prize money, the tour said Wednesday. Eleven events will have purses of more than $1 million.

Children 15 and under will be admitted free to a all tournaments as long as they are accompanied by a ticket-holding adult.