TEMECULA – Christian Rajcic, a member of Murrieta’s Bear Creek Golf Club, started Wednesday’s final round of the Asher Tour’s Temecula Open with a two shot lead. Throughout the final round players were able to put birdies together in bunches but had runs fizzle out.

From the middle of the pack Dalan Refioglu shot a final round 66 (-6) and posted -14. He then had to wait to see if it would be good enough to either win the tournament or enter a playoff.  Forty-five minutes later he’d find out that it would be one shot short of a playoff.

Ramona’s Christian Rajcic, a member at Murrieta’s Bear Creek Golf Club, watches a tee shot in flight during Wednesday’s final round of the Asher Tour’s Temecula Open. Valley News/Andrez Imaging

Rajcic won the title with a walk off chip in birdie from just over the back of the ninth green of the Creek course (their final hole of the day). It was the culmination of a round full of stellar play around the greens from the former UC Riverside Highlander.

His day started with a six-foot par save at the first after missing that green. Then he added key par saves from greenside bunkers at 12 and 16 which along with birdies at 2, 5 (from 30 feet), 13 and the aforementioned chip in birdie at 18 allowed him to shoot 68 (-4) and win by one.

“I putted terribly yesterday so to see that first one go down really gave me a lot of confidence to start the round,” Rajcic remarked. “Today was about going out there, playing clean golf and seeing what happened. I didn’t even look at anything scoring wise until somewhere on the back nine.”

Rallies by Jason Li and Charlie Reiter, his playing partners, also fizzled out late.

Li used stellar ball striking to set up four birdies in a five-hole span on the back nine (11,13,14,15) and take a lead after 16 holes. He’d lose the lead with a double bogey seven on the par five 17th hole after pulling his tee shot left and failing to get back into position.

Meanwhile, the long hitting Reiter made three straight birdies to start the round and gave it all back with a bogey at four and a double bogey at the reachable par 4 12th hole after hitting a tee shot out of bounds. He’d make it interesting by going eagle-birdie on the par 5 13th hole and par 4 14th, nearly holing approach shots on both holes. A bogey at 16 dropped him from contention and he’d record a T5 for the week.

“This prize money gives me some opportunities to try some Korn Ferry Monday qualifiers I might not have among other things,” Rajcic added. “It’s always nice to start the year with a win.”

Other local notable finishers:

T4. Chad Hambright (Canyon Lake), -4 (214)

T11. Josh Anderson (Murrieta), -8 (208)

T16. John Chin (Temecula), -1 (215)

T33. Braeden Korn, -2 (214)

The Asher Tour returns for stops on March 8th-10th at Soboba Springs Country Club in San Jacinto, March 27 and 28 at Bear Creek in Murrieta for the Bear Creek Shootout, and April 6th-7th for the Soboba Springs Shootout. They visit Bakersfield next week.

Derryl Trujillo

Derryl Trujillo has been a local sportswriter since 2018 and is the 2019 IEBCA Supporter of the Year award winner. He can be reached via email at socaltrekkie@gmail.com.