2016 – Week 4

Another terrible day ordered up by the weatherman this week but that didn’t stop the GCCGL from completing another week. Despite a torrential downpour just before tee time and then more steady rains during the round, not only did we successfully complete the round, but we had perfect attendance thanks to our subs, VanPelt and Verst. So far we are perfect for the 2016 season. Let’s continue this momentum and go for a 100% attendance record which has never been accomplished.

This week’s survey results were a huge success! First of all, the “Angriest Golfer” overwhelming went to Goldie. You can’t argue with those results. Anyone who knows Pete and who’s played with Pete, will agree this is well deserved. Goldie has beaten up some golf bags in his day along with one or two clubs; and it’s just not a golf league night out without hearing Goldie expletives echoed throughout the course grounds. The survey also asked the GCCGL members to come up with some limericks for national limerick day and boy were there some beauties! I’ve said it time and time again, we have an eclectic and very creative group of individuals whose collective genius may just be underrated. Now if we can only get some of you knuckleheads to comment on the blog.

Where’s Cletus? That’s the question everyone’s been asking these days. The old man has missed the last two weeks despite being in the office both times. It’s also been reported that he’s been looking for a “ringer” sub for the upcoming Stableford Scramble. What gives? There are all kinds of rumors floating around. For example, there’s been an unconfirmed report that Cletus has been seen wandering around aimlessly the last two Wednesdays at the Twin Oaks Golf course in Latonia. The poor guy thinks he’s participating in the GCCGL but he has the wrong day and course. Looks like the early onset of dementia may be setting in. Speaking of dementia, the Portuguese Warrior had an Alzheimer’s moment himself. In the parking lot after the round, PW was frantically digging through his bag looking for his keys. It was pouring rain and Cupcake stopped by to see what the commotion was all about and asked what was wrong.  I responded that I think I lost my car keys.  Being the gentleman Cupcake is, he held the umbrella over me while I kept looking and then asked “are they in your pocket”?  I looked at him and said, “um….listen here numnuts, would I be standing here in the rain for the last five minutes, taking my golf bag apart by the seams if my keys were in my jacket pocket?!” Then I checked my pocket…….and found my “lost” keys. Not my best moment. Getting back to the “Where’s Cletus” segment of the blog, another rumor which has a higher degree of validity, is that the old man’s IBS is flaring up again and he’s decided to not take any chances. Smart move Cletus, very smart move.

Speaking of irritable bowel syndrome, we had another strange occurrence last night. In what has to be one of the oddest things to happen in the GCCGL in a long time, Hollywood just up and drove off the last hole during his match with Gobstopper.  Didn’t say anything to anyone, not even his opponent.  The match was a close one (4-4) so that wasn’t the reason. As you can imagine, the GCCGL press was all over this incident during the morning post-round press conference and pushed Hollywood hard for some sort of explanation but he would only say “I had to bail”. Therefore, the commissioner’s office has no choice but to speculate on various potential explanations for the abrupt ending. As usual, it’s kind of chancy to let the league office’s imagination run wild, so as a result, we have added a new rule to the GCCGL Rules manual.

Section 2-#2 – The Hollywood “Bowel” (get it, Hollywood “bowel” instead of “bowl”)……come on, that’s great stuff right there!

If an opponent leaves the match on the last hole for no apparent reason, gives no explanation while kicking his opponent out of the cart like an Uber cabbie kicking out a couple of stoned teenagers spilling stuffed cheesy volcano burritos all over his/her new Toyota Prius, the player will be penalized 1 stroke for a #1 and 2 strokes for a #2. The commissioner’s office along with the player’s opponent has the discretion to assume the level of “emergency”. Low net will be played out as normal and will not be automatically given to the opponent left holding his bag (literally).

Despite the weather conditions, most folks scored crazy low rounds! We tied a record with a low net 26 by Boot Boy. We had over 80% of the league shoot under or at par. Big Ed finished his round in Hall of Fame fashion by birdie’ing the last three holes! Even Squints had a BIG night, even though he lost to Big Ed. Squints went a very impressive 16-4-3 against the league! That is super impressive when you consider all the ridiculously low scores that were posted like Prince Albert and Boot Boy both shooting even par. As a matter of fact, we had 8 players shoot gross scores in the 30’s! Gross scores, not net scores! As a result we had members who were net under par and still tied or lost! That’s some tough luck right there. I was one of the unfortunate ones, shooting 3 under my HC and losing big to the “Pony Tail”. I give all the credit to Ollie, he beat me fair and square but I may have let him off the hook on hole #2. The Portuguese Warrior was not much of a warrior at that moment after consoling his opponent after Ollie took 5 shots to get out of the rough on #2 and instead of laughing at him and making him struggle through, I went over and told him “it’s just one hole, it will be okay, you’ll get it next time, blah, blah, blah…”.  Like I’ve stated before, the Portuguese people are a kind, generous and extremely good looking bunch. It’s in our DNA to be sympathetic to others, especially the elderly. Needless to say, that was the last point I saw until Ollie screwed up a short putt later in the round.  Lesson learned. In other news – Labatt’s is back at BW’s! Look at how happy he is. He looks happier than Bill Cosby with a pocket full of quaaludes at a Chippendales show on Girl’s Night.

click for larger view

The big winners this week were Gamblers Fallacy who beat Three Men and a Sub (22.5 – 17.5). They were led by Cupcake who grabbed 8 points. Laying 8 defeated Grandpa’s Cough Medicine (22 – 18). They were led by Ollie who took 7 points. Prince Albert Syndrome squeaked by Protein for Peffercorn (21 – 19). They were led by The Legend who won 7 points. The low net winners were Smith, Turnwald, Duer, Petryk, Morell (A/B) with a low net of 30. They won a total $3.10 for their troubles. Joe, a.k.a. JJ (C/D) won low net with a record (tie) 26. Congratulations to the winners!

We move to the back nine of the Pioneer for the next two weeks. The odds are in our favor for a decent day weather-wise, it can’t get much worse I suppose. Don’t forget to check out the latest installment of the Prince Albert Chronicles. If you can’t make it, please try and get a sub. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ‘em straight!

George Almeida – GCCGL co-commissioner