2013 – Week 1

The 2013 GCCGL season has officially begun. We had a great turnout (23 of 24) golfers. The only reason we didn’t have perfect attendance was because there was no sub available within the rules for Moore’s Misfits so that team played the Florida Scramble with 3 players which was a steep penalty to pay.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The best way to describe the opening week of the 2013 GCCGL season is to reference the classic Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The first week was most definitely a mix bag of some good things, some bad things and some ugly things.

The Good
Decent weather albeit a bit nippy for golf. We had clear skies but the temperature hovered around 59 degrees at tee time and dropped steadily throughout the evening. We tee’d off nearly on time but not quite. Still, we were able to finish the round even though it was a little dicey for the last team. It should get better each week so hang in there. We had a record for the fastest nickname given to a member (3 minutes). Glen Gustafson arrived late for his tee time and introduced himself and then disappeared! His team was scheduled to tee off first but had to defer. This prompted the nickname “Wildcard”. There are rumors milling about that his starting HC of a 10 may be a little on the high side but then again, it may not be. Will he consistently show up or not and if he does, will he be on time? No one is sure what to expect, hence the perfect nickname, Wildcard. Immediately afterwards, a new sub who was quietly trying to blend in the background was spotted and instantly tagged with the nickname of Cupcake Jr. Welcome aboard Steve Toerner! Steve was nice enough to fill in for Tiagra Woods and this is what he gets. It could be worse, he could have been playing with the Free Pork Sandwich team. More on that later. I must admit, this is another well-deserved and well-appointed nickname. The resemblance to our very own co-commissioner Jason Nill, aka Cupcake, is uncanny. Steve, do you  mow the lawn shirtless in front of all the desperate housewives in the neighborhood too?

The Bad
The windy conditions certainly didn’t help the golf play. Not a single team finished under par which is extremely rare in a scramble, even a Florida Scramble format. Golf play this time of year is normally not up to the standard play normally seen in the summer time. But it was particular bad this week. Included in the bad, is that we play the next two weeks on the back nine of the Willows. Don’t be surprised to see some scores in the high 50’s or even in the 60’s next week. Slicers not Hookers (SNH), in a show of team unity not seen since the likes of Cousin Joe’s desperate motivational email aptly named Crunch Time to his team in 2010, wore the same team wrist bands on the right wrist. It was one of the corniest moments ever in the GCCGL but I have to admit, it was funny. It is believed to be the brain child of Kreyling who by the way may have a new nickname, Lipgloss. Not sure who coined it but I think Cletus and/or Eiser may have had a hand in it. I can’t believe we lost to THAT team. If you are new to the league and haven’t read Crunch Time, please do.  It stills gives me goose bumps every time I read it.

The Ugly
Where do I begin. Free Port Sandwich the Goldenberg Dilemma (short name Free Pork Sandwich) was horrible. The real dilemma for Goldie isn’t having to forego the delicious taste of perfectly cooked pulled pork barbecue sandwich because it isn’t kosher. It is whether he’ll remain tied to his 2013 GCCGL teammates for the full season! We lost a Florida Scramble to a team with 3 players! That is almost impossible to do. To be fair, Goldie played well. He was bombing his drives. The bad news is we didn’t have anyone able to hit a decent 2nd shot. And when we did, no one could sink a putt. Not a single birdie the entire round. On number 8, the short easy par 4, things got so bad that we were facing a 12 foot bender just to make bogie! Almeida and Szylakowski both missed their putts which left it up to Goldie. As he’s addressing his putt, all he kept muttering is how ridiculously bad his team was and how we should all be embarrassed to call ourselves golfers. He may not have used those exact words but there were certainly some “colorful” words used to describe his feelings for this pitiful excuse of a golf team.  However, since this is a family blog, I had to clean it up for the kiddies. He did in fact state that if he didn’t make the putt and we wound up with a double-bogie on that hole that he would either demand a trade or quit the league for the 2013 season. Thankfully for the rest of his teammates, he made the putt! Whew, that was close! Can you image a team comprised of McLinn, Almeida and Bloomhuff all year? We’d be hard pressed to find a sub willing to fill in and associate themselves with us. With all that said…..I still like our chances.

One final note. Please try and remember that this is a fun league. The commissioners spend a lot of time running and organizing the GCCGL so as to provide the maximum entertainment value for your dollar. We pay the same dues as everyone else, there are no perks to speak of. So you can understand that I was saddened to hear that Big Donkey, our newest, co-commissioner, is already contemplating his resignation after just one week on the job. I understand there will always be some level of complaints (tee times, handicaps, rules interpretations, etc.) I also realize that most of it is in jest and part of the GCCGL experience. I get it, I really do, otherwise I could have never done this for so many years. I founded this league approximately 20 years ago and one of the reasons it has been so successful is because of the rules that were instituted back on day one. Sure they’ve been revised many times over since then. We started out with a spreadsheet, barely 16 members and a handful of subs and now the league has 60 participants and its own Internet domain. The point is I couldn’t have done it without the help of my current and past co-commissioners. If they start resigning, this league will fold quicker than a cheap tent. So please do this chunky, vertically challenged, Portuguese New Yorker a solid and take it easy on my co-commissioners this season.

The winners of the Florida scramble were #teamname who finished EVEN. They were followed by Slicers not Hookers (+1), Who’s Your Caddie (+2), Tiagra Woods and Moore’s Misfits finished ties with (+3). Rounding up last place was Free Pork Sandwich at (+4). The winners of the Closest-to-the-pin competition were Cousin’ Joe (A/B) and Troy Bachmann (C/D). Congratulations to the winners!

We move to the back nine of the Willows for the next two weeks. Please consider renting carts for this back nine to speed play up a little. We hope to see you on the golf course and as always, hit ’em straight!

George Almeida – GCCGL Co-Commissioner