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        PICTURES of the 1998 Tournament

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Editors Note:
These picture sets show the 1998 Tournament in reverse chronological order.  Not only are there pictures of the Tournament itself, but a documentary of what we had to do to even hold the Tournament last year.  From the earliest pictures it was evident that there might not even be a tournament because El Nino took all the sand away.  But in May, the Estero Beach hotel and the Novelo family committed to building a man-made beach venue on the bluff overlooking the beach adjacent to the hotel.  We had our doubts that it could be pulled off, but the photos below show the steady progress from scrub desert to a 65 beautiful sand courts... and the great time everyone had at the Estero Beach Tournament in June.   So start at the bottom set and re-live our most chellenging of 24 years of hosting this Mexico beach classic.

Below are "thumbnail" images.   Just click on them to see the larger image.  They're all about 20k, which means that they should load in under 15 seconds if the Internet is not too busy.

PICTURE SET 3.

During the Tournament.   Everyone who kept the faith was rewarded with one of the best Tournaments in recent memory.

 

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Mens Winners:
   Kirk Morgan, San Juan Capistrano, CA (left) and
   Pepe Delahoz, San Diego, CA

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Kirk Morgan ready to skyball in the semi-final.
Where'd  ya get that hat?  And where is she now?

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George Stepanof and the Ocean Beach Boys

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Dancing Sat Nite

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Linda Holmgren serving it up

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Remember this place?

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Who said volleyball?

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Bubbles and Binky

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Kaz printing the Pool Sheets

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Guess who???

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Shetler family outing

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Hey!  There's family here!

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~16 set checking out the future

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Estero widows

PICTURE SET 2.

June 1:  This was our deadline day for cancelling the Tournament.  When the Committee scouting party arrived, we were in  utter amazement at what the hotel had done to that patch of scrub.  Here's the story...

The Hotel has done the impossible... flat, clean and deep.  Here's looking toward the ocean.

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Looking across to the south.

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Easy way of drilling the holes

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Only 69 more.

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Skelly laying out courts...

Est-12 Skelly w flags.JPG (16602 bytes)

PICTURE SET 1.

Early May:  no sand in the usual places, and the hotel starts operations by scraping off the desert scrub on a 5-acre bluff overlooking the beach.

First, here is the beach two years ago.  Who's that guy at the net? 

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Here's the exact same beach today

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But if you go just up on that hill overlooking where the big tent was...

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Woah, check out the big iron...

..Est-3 Trucks.JPG (16035 bytes)

Just add sand and we might be playing some ball after all.......

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And at the far eastern end of the court area, beyond the fence, a new concept... parking!

Est-7 Parking.JPG (20274 bytes)
 

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In Memorium

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Mike Brown
1934-1998
Father of the Tournament