When the text message reached Elk Grove early Sunday afternoon that the Sacramento Men's Regional Four-Ball Championship featured an all-Valley Hi final, the scramble was on.

"Half the guys on the driving range basically just ran out of here," Valley Hi pro Dave Bingham said.

Members making the short trek to Bing Maloney saw Ken Crawford and Brad Penfold beat the father-son team of Kevin and Cameron Rappleye on the 20th hole.

Crawford ended things with a 10-foot birdie putt after missing birdie putts from 8 and 4 feet on the previous two holes that would have won the match.

"I told Brad that I was going to keep on stiffing it until they make a bogey," Crawford cracked. "I was hitting it halfway decent, but I had some putting issues."

Neither team led by more than a hole in the final. In the semifinals Sunday morning, Crawford and Penfold defeated Jeff Gilchrist and Steve Woods, while team Rappleye defeated Greg Olson and Jeff Stewart, both matches finishing 1 up.

Valley Hi staked its claim as the area club with the best players during the two-weekend tournament that annually kicks off the local competitive golf season. Rancho Murieta, which was 45th nationally last fall in Golf Digest's ranking of the nation's private clubs with the best players, saw two teams knocked out by the Rappleyes.

"I think we've got it going a little bit," Bingham said. "I'm real proud of my guys."

The Rappleyes played 75 holes in four matches over the final weekend, leaving Kevin, 51, more reliant than normal on Cameron, a freshman at Sacramento State. "I don't think I've ever been as tired in my life," dad said.

Between them, Crawford and Penfold have won the past eight Valley Hi club championships. They've faced each other in the club's match-play final the past five years.

Four-ball subplots

Real life got in the way during the two weekends, prompting some valiant individual efforts.

The team of Kevin Kobalter and Chris Griggs prevailed over Brandon Dunn and James Atchison in the round of 16 after Griggs left after nine holes and the match all square to attend the confirmation of his son.

Kobalter, a long-ago La Sierra High School graduate now living in the Bay Area, went 2 up with pars on Nos. 10 and 11 against his obviously shaken competitors, then had to birdie No. 18 to send the match to extra holes. He won with a par on the 20th hole.

Griggs didn't leave Kobalter completely hanging, birdieing Nos. 8 and 9 to even the match.

"I told Kevin good luck," Griggs said. "He was not playing his best at the time, but I figured he would play a little better with me not there, which he obviously did."

Mike Gillette, a starter in the Bing Maloney pro shop, played the first 13 holes by himself in the round of 16 while partner Kellen Arceo was taking the California Highway Patrol written exam.

Gillette was 2 down to Kyle Candish and Gary Ramsden when Arceo arrived for a 2 and 1 loss.

"I didn't play all that great," Gillette said. "It wasn't meant to be."

Ransom notes

John Madrid and Lew Morse, former Stockton boys and now Sacramento old-timers, called in response to last week's story pertaining to Barbara Ransom, the distinguished Northern California amateur from the late 1920s through the 1940s.

Madrid, 82, recalls carrying the bags of Ralph "Pops" Ransom and Filipino spiritual leader General Gen. Hilario Camino Del Prado Moncado in a 1942 group that included Barbara Ransom at the municipal course near the fairgrounds that no longer exists.

"Barbara carried her own bag," Madrid said.

Morse, 90, took a lesson from Barbara Ransom as a teenager. She was a great ball-striker, Morse remembers from playing rounds alongside her, but like most of the playerstop players of her era, she didn't pay the kind of attention to putting that players do today.

"That kept her from being among the very best," Morse said.

Et cetera

Spencer "Nails" Gedestad is the only Valley Hi founding member still playing, Bingham reports. The club opened in 1960. Gedestad is 89, still walks the course and, yes, is as tough as his nickname implies.

• Blast from TV sportscaster past: Creighton Sanders aced the 175-yard 16th hole at Valley Hi on Saturday using a 4-iron.

Call The Bee's Steve Pajak, (916) 326-5526.