2014 – Week 5
Can you believe we are more than one quarter of the way through the 2014 GCCGL season already? It was a picture perfect day from the weather gods which resulted in perfect attendance once again thanks to three substitutes. A big thank you to Seth Brooks, Jennifer Dominik and Gregg Szylakowski.
We’ve been teeing off on time this season and this week was no different but we fell a little behind because we didn’t have everyone on the tee for the second foursome. We tried to form another foursome but we didn’t have any match play pairs so we had to wait. It didn’t cost us but let’s try to get to the tee on time, please. That wasn’t the only thing that delayed us this week. How about that pin placement on hole #10? I’m sure as each group waited, endlessly, for the group ahead of them to putt out, they were cursing under their breath. That is until you got to the green and witnessed that pin location. The hole was cut on a side hill lie for God’s sake! No matter how soft you putted, if you were above the hole, it was virtually impossible to stop the ball unless it went in the hole. Why would the Greenskeeper do this? Maybe he woke up that morning and stepped on a huge, steaming pile of dog poop on the carpet and then later that day, he came home to surprise his wife of 40 years with a nice lunch only to find her cooking lunch for a much younger 58 year old landscaper; and as he stormed out of the house, he gets into his crappy car and gets cut off while driving to the golf course by an oversized pickup truck with a “truck nuts” dangling off the trailer hitch causing him to veer off onto the curb and get a flat tire. No doubt, this would be a super bad day for anyone but it is no excuse for some of those hole locations on the Willows back nine!
Speaking of bad days, another day on the back nine of the Willows equaled another day of higher than normal scores. Last week was easy to blame on the weather but there wasn’t an excuse this week. Relief is here finally, it will be 6 weeks before we step foot on Willows 10 again. I propose a “Skirt Round” for the next time we play W10. Everyone tees off from the ladies tees. That is a is a completely different course from the White tees…..I’m just kidding about the “skirt round”….but I am open to a “senior round” (grey tees).
I’m not sure how many of you are aware of this but our own Ollie Livermore had off-season eye surgery. He got tired of not being able to find his ball after just about every tee shot. He now claims to have 20 – 15 vision. It certainly hasn’t hurt his golf game. He kicked my butt a couple of weeks ago and he’s off to a 3 – 1 start this season. This past week, his new found vision was put to the test as he tee’d off on #13 with his foursome of Cupcake, #2 and The Golf Angel. Cupcake hit his drive but he didn’t see it as did no one else, except for Ollie that is. Ollie emphatically stated that it went down the left hand side and he was sure about it. He went onto explain his eye surgery procedure to the rest of the foursome. As Cupcake and Ollie are searching for his ball on the left side of the fairway under some trees, someone remarkably finds his ball……………on the right side of the fairway in the rough! LEFT….RIGHT….TOMATO….TOMAHTO….it’s all the same. Ollie had another chance to redeem himself, and the good name of his surgeon on #18 when Cupcake once again didn’t know where he hit his drive. Hmm, I’m sensing a pattern here Cupcake. Maybe if you weren’t too busy playing “army golf” (left, right, left, right..) you’d be able to find your own balls! Anyway, Ollie proclaimed that he definitely saw Cupcake’s drive on #18. No worries, Ollie is on the job! Long story short, Cupcake dropped and took a penalty. Ollie, you might want to look into getting a refund or at least a partial post-operation discount. If this doesn’t get any better, your new nick name will wind up being Eagle Eyes.
So far it has been a very uneventful golf season for the GCCGL. Usually by this time there’s been at least one major controversy, a couple of altercations, some broken clubs, three or four indecent exposure warnings from the clubhouse and one impending lawsuit. But this year…..NADA. So please bear with me as I continue to fill this blog with absolute inconsequential fluff. Something is bound to happen with this bunch of eclectic individuals sooner or later.
The big winner this week was Morning Wood who pummeled Carrier to the Hole and Duer (26 – 14) inching their way within 3.5 points of first place. They were led by Legend who took 9 points this week. If Seiter’s HC doesn’t go down soon, his new nick name will need to be changed to Sandbaggger. Das Boots are Made for Golfing lost some ground and barely hung on to first place after narrowly defeating Balls and Dolls (20.5 – 19.5). They were led by old eagle eyes himself, Ollie who managed 8.5 points. Finally, the Putt Pirates move up one spot into 3rd place by squeaking by Schmuck Dynasty (21 – 19). They were led by Cupcake who is carrying this team on his back. He grabbed 7.5 points this week.
Other news, just a reminder regarding hole # 15 on the Willows back 9. There is an allowance to make the hole fairer when one is teeing up from the white tees. If you wish, take a look at Section 7A-1 in the GCCGL Rules. Syndrome’s attendance is still perfect. This is unprecedented. I understand there is a huge side bet as to how long the streak will go and the reason it will end. I’m sure Cletus is behind this. Speaking of Cletus, the Cletus Tally has returned; see the bottom right side bar. Balls and Dolls won their first matches of the season this week. It only took them four weeks, but they did it! They turned in a respectable round against the first place Das Boots team and almost beat them. The winners of the low net were Nick Duer (A/B) with a low net of 35 and Justin Seiter (C/D) with a low net of 34. This is two weeks in a row that both of these players won low net. We do not think this has ever happened before, where the two same players have won back-to-back low nets. Congratulations to the winners!
We move to the Pioneer front nine this week. We play our second special event of the season, the Stableford Scramble. This is the only event where YOU decide how many points you can accumulate and make up. Remember, if you can’t make it, please get a sub but it must follow the scramble rules. I’d like to give another shout out to my co-commissioners who really do most of the work in running this league. Kreyling Korner has earned regional praise and it should be noted that co-commissioner Cupcake stayed up until 1:30 am last Thursday evening to crunch the numbers and update the GCCGL database because he was going to be out of the office on Friday. This is the kind of dedication GCCGL members get when joining this premiere golf league. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ’em straight!
George Almeida – GCCGL founder and co-commissioner
