2015 – Week 10

Somehow, someway, the rain Gods allowed us to get in our round in what turned out to be a warm but pleasant evening. After 10 weeks of the GCCGL 20^th anniversary season, the perfect attendance record has come to an end. It turns out there’s a flaw in our substitute system. Subs go on vacation too! Who knew? Despite popular belief, subs are just like you and me. They put their pants on one leg at a time, spaz out like their face is on fire after walking into a spider web and binge watch entire seasons of Dog the Bounty Hunter just like the rest of us. Overall, the attendance rate is still phenomenal at 99%! A big thanks to Lane, McLinn, Tucker, Dominik and Gall for subbing this week. Without them, the inaugural Pink Ball event would have been a big cluster.

Speaking of “cluster”, what was up with Cletus this week? He gets back from Europe and all of a sudden he thinks he’s co-commissioner of the GCCGL once again. He was complaining about the Pink Ball rules, specifically regarding the Massholes only having three players. I know he chewed Cupcake’s ear off at the office and he wouldn’t shut up on the practice tees and then continued to quote the “scramble” rules (that he wrote as former GCCGL co-commissioner) to me on the practice green. The Massholes were missing their A and B players this week. For some reason, we could not get one sub to fill in for either of them even after sending emails to all substitutes. Luckily Radio stepped in at the last minute. He definitely helped the Massholes but they were still lacking that A/B presence. For some reason, Cletus barked at the Massholes alternating fourth shots on every hole and announced he’s playing the round under protest. We had two C’s and a D player. What exactly were you afraid of Cletus? Even though Cletus was being extra ….”Cletus-like” this week, he still provides plenty of controversy and entertainment to the league which quite frankly, I need right now. So far the 2015 GCCGL season hasn’t had much in the way of controversy therefore I depend on Cletus to stir some up. In return, the GCCGL puts up with his antics and he gets to golf once a week with the league. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Kind of like with the Sea Cucumber and the Pearlfish. Did you know that the Sea Cucumber breaths through its anus? The Pearlfish waits for the sea cucumber to take a breath and then slips in through the back door. Yikes! That gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Entering in through the out door”. The Pearlfish uses the sea cucumber’s anus as protection during the day and ventures out to feed at night. I’m not making this up. One might argue that this is not a symbiotic relationship, after all, what’s in it for the sea cucumber? I don’t know the answer to that but I wonder what in the world would one would have to have done in a prior life to warrant living out their life as a Pearlfish.

Take a look at this billboard below. Good news, looks like they’re bringing back sweet tea to McDonalds.

Seriously though, I heard everyone had a ball at this year’s Testicle festival. Bada-bump ching! The tourists went nuts for the “Lamb Fries”. Hey-OH!

I know, I know….. this post is going nowhere fast!  I have no shame writing about sea cucumbers and sheep balls. But before you judge me, remember, I can only blog about what the GCCGL gives me…and lately there’s been a whole lot of nothing other than good old fashion golf.

We did have an incident occur as Gordon and I were procuring some libations for the final few foursomes. I heard Syndrome made a new friend. One of the old guys working the carts at the clubhouse stopped by the Willows 9th green and asked everyone to bring up the carts so that he can get home to his Thursday night Canasta game. They do this pretty much every week but this time Syndrome couldn’t help himself. I’m sorry I missed the altercation. Apparently Syndrome lit into the poor guy. It kind makes sense now because as Joe and I were walking down with the pitchers, he stopped and asked us if we were heading down to Willows 9. I stated yes, we were and he proceeded to tell me to ask everyone with a cart to drive them back. Then he added, “and tell that loud mouth, cartoonish looking, stocky fella that if he thinks he’s better than me, then tell him its “Go Time” and have him meet me at the Independence Senior Center, next Tuesday at 4:00pm, just before the early bird dinner special, and ask for Izzy Mandelbaum. I’ll show him who’s better!”

Although the commissioner’s office didn’t account for all the different scenarios regarding substitutions and missing players for the inaugural Pink Ball event, it looks like the high majority of members liked the format enough to bring it back next season. The GCCGL office will make some adjustments and see how it goes next season. In case you are wondering, handicapping the Pink Ball holes would have resulted in lower overall scores of course but it would not have changed the outcome. However, next season, we may institute the handicap and see how it turns out.

The winners of the Pink Ball event were as follows:

The top three teams are within 10 points of each other setting up a showdown between the top two teams this week. It should be interesting.

The Closest-to-the-pin winners were Mike Harris (A/B) and Mike Tucker (C/D). Congratulations to the winners! We move to the back nine of the Willows for the next two weeks! It is back to match play this week. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ‘em straight!

George Almeida – GCCGL Co-commissioner