2014 – Week 18
What a season! I can’t believe that it’s been 18 weeks already. Summer finally arrived in Northern KY and it was STEAMY! We had perfect attendance and finished up at 97.5% for the year. This breaks the old record of 97.4%! Thank you to all our subs who played this season and to Brooks, Straub, Hellman and Berkley who filled in for the final scramble.
Congratulations to the team of Das Boots are Made for Golfing, Danny Roller, Joe Eiser, Mike Hlebovy and Oliver Livermore. They are the 2014 GCCGL Champions! It was a wild ride indeed. Das Boots started hot and was on top of the standings for the better part of the first half but then hit one of the worst losing streaks in GCCGL history with the low point arguably being the week 8 when a new mysterious sub nicknamed “Scratch” showed up out of nowhere and whipped Snoodles like a catholic school girl by a frustrated nun. It all started with the traditional Florida Scramble which propelled the pre-season favorites, Morning Wood, to an early lead. The post-round gallery conversations have sunk to all new lows this season but continue to make us all laugh. Of course, who can forget on week 4, when Syndrome decided it would be a good idea to show off his abs. We had our very first and only Hole-in-One by Danielle Lickert on week six. There were old jokes that were new jokes to the younger generation and a weirdly odd and emotional moment on week 14 followed by a salty Kreyling Korner and even saltier weekly blog. This all came together on week 17 when a secret package was anonymously dropped at the GCCGL doorstep revealing the Secret Sauce to Couzin’ Joe’s draft selection. By the way, his team finished in 5th place so I’d say it’s missing a couple of ingredients.
The final week of the season was epic. There were 4 teams vying for first place and a 5th place team trying to finish in the money. Having been pretty much eliminated from contention at the draft selection, Balls and Dolls was busy drinking, going through the motions and heckling the Putt Pirates. The Pirates started out HOT with three birdies in a row thanks to two perfectly executed drives by their D Player (me)! Then on hole #13, Lip Gloss hit a perfect drive 100 yards from the pin! On the approach shot, I hit a low liner that landed near the drop zone. Terrible second shot but hey….we still had the meat of our team ready to stick it near the pin. That’s when Cletus and Syndrome thought it would be funny to yell “Noonan!” during Cupcake’s back swing. It resulted in a 50 yard plunker into the pond. Then came Bleeker, as his back swing completed, another shout of “Noonan!” echoed from the #14 tee. This one louder than the first. This had the opposite effect and George Jr’s shot landed way up on the hill past the cart path. Strike two! Finally, our leader, our captain and the creator of the popular Kreyling Korner blog, stepped up. To Balls and Dolls’ credit, they didn’t yell Noonan! This time………. they shouted “Jackass!” Plunk…..right in the middle of the pond. Damn you B&D! You cost us a legitimate shot for a second place tie. We had no choice but to use my pathetic shot which all of a sudden was looking FANTASTIC. We wound up with our only bogey of the night. I think we would have been justified in re-taking those shots again but we didn’t. Thanks for nothing Cletus………you too Syndrome! Karma is a bitch. You won’t know when and where but the time will come for pay back.
It was the weirdest scramble I’ve ever been a part of. Other than the “Noonan” hole, the Putt Pirate were never in any real trouble but it wasn’t a conventional scramble round where you get on in regulation and make a putt. Instead we had a “chip in” by Bleeker on the first hole and an 86 yard Eagle on hole #16 by Lip Gloss!
Other highlights included two teams going into the last hole without using one of their players’ drives. Carrier to the Hole and Duer had their clubs in their bags as Couzin’ Joe went to the 9th tee alone and drive one into the woods. Meanwhile Bleeker hadn’t used his drive but came up huge and hit a bomb cutting the corner over the trees leaving us 170 to the pin. The decision to go with a traditional PGA tee order proved to be the right decision as the pressure got hotter as the gallery got louder. We’ll be keeping this order (last place to first place) from here on out. Good call LG! Old man Cletus had one last prank left in him. As co-commissioners Lip Gloss, Cupcake and I were making our way to the clubhouse to purchase libations, Cletus was just arriving with an ice cold pitcher of beer with a nice head of foam. He stated to Cupcake that he wasn’t sure if it was Bud or Miller. We all know how much Cupcake hates Bud Light. So Cletus asked Cupcake to smell it. As Cupcake leaned down to smell the beer, Cletus blew into the foam and it went all over Cupcake’s face! Oh that Cletus! I can’t believe you fell for that Cupcake. Staying on Cletus for a moment, Syndrome had questioned Cletus’ sneaker shopping judgment when he noticed his powder baby-blue shoes and asked Cletus if he went to the mall and walked a mile every day before work. The post season celebration continued at BW’s where about a dozen of us got together. It was here that I found out that Couzin’ Joe isn’t the only player in the league that has a draft rating system in place. Big Donkey and Snoodles also have systems in place. Roller, since your team won the championship, what’s your secret sauce? Oh wait….that didn’t come out right….
The final scramble results were as follows:
Das Boots are Made for Golfing – 25 points (-6)
Putt Pirates – 20 points (-5)
Carrier to the Hole and Duer – 10 points (-4)
Schmuck Dynasty – 10 points (-4)
Morning Wood – 10 points (-5)
Balls and Dolls – 0 points (-2)
As stated earlier, Das Boots took the GCGL title with the scramble victory while Morning Wood slipped to 2nd place. Moving all the way up from 5th to 3rd place were the Putt Pirates. Schmuck Dynasty dropped out of the money into 4th place as did Carrier to the Hole and Duer who wound up in 5th place. Rounding out the bottom of the standings were Balls and Dolls who never made it out of the cellar from week one to week 18. They were consistent if they were anything. However, they did break the 300 point barrier (barely). That’s something, right? The closest-to-the-pin winners were Mike Harris (A/B) and Troy Bachmann (C/D). Joe Eiser was the Points Champ and Troy Bachmann was the Winning PCT champ. Congratulations to the winners!
I’d like to thank my fellow co-commissioners Jason Nill and Kurt Kreyling for everything. It is a lot of work running this league and those guys do most of the heavy lifting during the season leaving me the time to concentrate on the blog and other administrative responsibilities. Between handling the finances, statistics, handicaps, tee times, Kreyling Korner as well as continuing to come up with fresh ideas to keep the GCCGL entertaining, competitive and relevant, I can’t thank them enough. Without them, there would be no GCCGL. So THANK YOU!
Next season will mark the 20th year anniversary for the GCCGL! We are going big next season. Expect some exciting changes. Some will stick around after the season and some may go but it will go down as one of the best seasons of all time. Some of the things in store for next season:
- GCCGL Hall of Fame
- Return of the GCCGL Members Profile blog page
- Expansion to 20 weeks for 20 years
- Possible movement to the open 5:16pm tee slot
- A new format splitting the season into two halves with the winners of each half squaring off in a winner-take-all playoff
- Many, many more special events while still having ample match play (but less of it)The start of a Hole-In-One Reserve. A portion of the GCCGL dues would be reserved for this purpose. Dues is increasing next season for the first time in over a decade. The next person who gets a Hole in One would collect the pot. This pot carries over from year to year.
- Membership attendance requirement of 69% (13 of 19 weeks) barring any unforeseen and unusual circumstances. Week 20 would be reserved for the Playoff. This is also the cut off for Winning % Champion. Members who cannot maintain this attendance rate will be asked to give up their full-time spot to someone on the waiting list.
Thank you to everyone who participated. I heard a lot of folks talk about how they felt this was one of the best seasons we’ve ever had in the GCCGL. Somehow we keep topping ourselves year after year. The reason is simple, YOU, the players, are what makes this league fun and interesting. New pics were added to the Photo Album and a new “Countdown to the 2015 Draft” has been added. The trophies have been ordered and we will schedule the post-season GCCGL luncheon once they are ready. Speaking on behalf of my fellow co-commissioners, it’s been a pleasure serving as your commissioners this season and we look forward to seeing you next season!
George Almeida – GCCGL founder and co-commissioner
