2013 – Week 16

Believe it or not, we are near the end of the 2013 GCCGL season. This is the final week of the year. We’ve had great weather two years in a row without a single rainout. Yea, yea, we could have easily been rained out one week last year when we were the only league on the course after monsoon rains and a nasty thunder and lightning storm rolled through and of course this past week when several leagues chose to pack it in and head to the clubhouse after a 30 minute light show. Instead, the members of this league refuse to give in and have shown they will play through anything! That’s what makes this week’s image so fitting and I think after almost 20 years, we’ve finally come up with our slogan, “The GCCGL….it’s not just a golf league“. We had another perfect attendance week with the help of another six subs. A big thanks to Bleeker, Knechtges, Dominik, Rozell, Bush, Lickert and Maines. Bruce, why don’t you just put in for a transfer right now. You know you’ve got the GCCGL fever and once you have it, there’s no cure.

Swing for a Cure
Speaking of cure, many of you have been asking about the annual outing for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation JDRF. The outing is on for 2013 and being held on August 30th. As many of you already know, our own Zach McNeil has been successfully battling diabetes most of his life. This is for a great cause. Please visit the Swing for a Cure website to register and for more information. The GCCGL has been participating in this event for many years. It is a lot of fun. Tell your family, friends and neighbors, form a foursome and come out and enjoy the festivities.

Down to the Wire
As far as golf weeks go, it was a pretty uneventful week. Despite being rained on, everyone finished their rounds before it got too dark. The top two teams came into the day tied for first place. Free Pork Sandwich was riding an unprecedented 11 game winning streak. The last time they lost a team match was way back on week 2. However, the streak was broken by Slicers Not Hookers who defeated them (21 -19). They were led by Joe Carrier who took 7.5 points and shot 5 under his HC. Of course it came against me. I shot my handicap but that wasn’t nearly enough on a night where Joe made so many long one putts I lost count towards the end of the round. Unfortunately for him, he still didn’t get (C/D) low net. That distinction went to Ollie who shot a net 29. Thanks for showing up Ollie but he season is almost over. Meanwhile the other first place team, #teamname, won their match against Tiagra Woods(20.5 – 19.5). They were led once again by Big Donkey who certainly has found his game and is peaking at the right time. BD won 7 points this week.

This means that #teamname has taken a slim 1.5 point lead over Free Port Sandwich heading into the final scramble next week. So after 16 weeks, after all the matches, special events, lost balls, penalties, sand saves, up and downs, it comes down to the final scramble. There are six teams capable of winning the final scramble, except for maybe Moore’s Misfits, more on them later. The scenarios are few this season. Neither one of the top two teams have to win the scramble in order to win the championship, they just have to finish ahead of the other team and they will win the championship. Who’s Your Caddie has the slimmest of hopes. They must win the scramble outright and have #teamname finish last and FPS finish 5th or tied for last. Of course if the top two teams finish tied, as long as it is not tied for last place and WYC in first place, then #teamname will hold on and become the 2013 GCCGL Champions. It’s that simple.

Just a note regarding the individual awards for Points Leader and Winning PCT Winner, Matt Mclinn has won both of these awards after finishing up a career year. No one else was even close. He has lowered his handicap 3 strokes this season. A fantastic year all the way around. Congratulations Matt!

Matt Mclinn – Points Leader (84.5) $20
Matt Mclinn – Winning PCT (.917 – 11-1-0) $20

Race within the Race
Tiagra Woods is out of the cellar! They have passed the slumping Moore’s Misfits into 5th place after Who’s Your Caddie destroyed them (24.5 – 15.5). They were led by Ollie to managed 7.5 points this week. Tiagra Woods is now 3 points up and sitting in a good position over Misfits. No one wants to finish last in this league. It comes down to the scramble for these two teams as well. Misfits have the second worst reliability rating at 66.1% slightly ahead of Tiagra Woods at 60.7%. But that number is skewed since one of their team members, Cunningham, has shown up one time in 16 weeks! By the way, we have a new record that will probably never be broken, Cunningham finishes the season with zero match play points. Zero. At least he recruited Dominik as a semi-permanent sub for the season.

Free Golf
This week is the traditional final Best Ball scramble. If you cannot make it, remember the Scramble Rule for securing a sub. Your sub MUST be within 3 strokes of your handicap to be eligible. No sub without 5 scores (*) is eligible. Each member of the foursome MUST use at least one drive. That’s it. We play on the Pioneer front nine. The rainout date is set for the following week if it comes to that. We added some more photos to the Photo Album. Thank you for a great season so far. This is one of the closest races we’ve had, it should be a great finish. Finally, please NOTE when you arrive at the golf course on August 15th, please mention that you are from General Cable and that this is the LAST week of the season. They will comp your round. That’s right, everyone that plays in the final scramble will play for FREE! If you decide to rent a cart, you will still need to pay the cart fee. We hope to see you on the golf course and as always, hit ’em straight!

George Almeida – GCCGL Co-Commissioner