2018 – Week 5

It was a wet mess out there this week. Once again, the GCCGL was teeing off in the rain as other leagues were scurrying back to the clubhouse like rats off a sinking ship. Speaking of rats, did anyone else notice the litter of dead rats in the deep stuff on the right on hole #13? Of course, PW’s drive was lost somewhere in that mess. Cupcake was helping me look for my ball and came across a litter of dead rats. That’s right. DEAD RATS. It’s bad enough that we all have to substitute one of our 14 golf clubs for a machete in order to hack our way through knee-high weeds in the rough every time we miss the fairway, but it’s a whole other ball game when you have to dodge rats in the process. Seriously, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be talking about golf and avoiding the plague in the same sentence! But the parking lot is paved so I guess we’re ok. Give me a break! 

How about the freakin’ Catlina Wine Mixer! They won their first team match beating Ballers…Schott Callers by 1 point. OK, it wasn’t exactly a first class beat down, but a win is a win! Speaking of wins, Andrew “Cleveland” Crowe (have we settled on this nick name yet?) is still looking for his first. I gotta admit, this winless streak is a quandary for me. This kid has a beautiful swing, a great personality and like fellow GCCGL member, Scratch, he can hit the ball a ton for someone of his stature. So you can understand why it baffles me as to why he hasn’t recorded a victory yet. I know this league is whacked and I can see how it can mess with people’s heads. Look what it’s done to Lip Gloss.  

Therefore, I’ve decided to do something to help him reverse this losing streak. I think it’s time for a pool. Here’s how it would work. In order to avoid a tie, all entries would enter all the criteria below. The order would dictate the tie-break. For example, say 10 people pick week 8 for Crowe’s first win, then we move to criteria #2. Out of that 10, another 5 picked the exact MP score the we move to criteria #3 and so on until we get to a single winner or the last criteria. This process greatly reduces the likelihood of a tie. 

Rules 

• 1 Entry = $2 
• 3 Entries = $5 (Summer Package)
• 5 Entries – $8 (Best Chance)
• $1 per entry after 5 entries 
• Entries must be entered and cash delivered no later than 12:00pm, May 30th   
• You can have as many entries to increase your odds of winning 
• Anyone can join the pool including subs, members and non-GCCGL members 
• It doesn’t matter who the win comes against (member or sub) 
• Payout: I propose a 60/40 split with 60% of the winnings going to the pool winner and 40% going to Crowe. This is still open to negotiation but I think it works 
• If in the unlikely event that Crowe does not get a win this season, the money will be returned and a new pool will be formed at the beginning of the 2019 season with new entries 

Criteria 
1. Week of first win: pick the week that Crowe gets his first win 
2. Score: pick the winning match play score 
3. Round Score: pick the score of the round that Crowe will post (closest wins)
4. Round Score Opponent: pick the score of the round that his opponent will post (closest wins)
5. Low net winner: does Crowe take low net that week or not 

Tips for Success 

• Get the schedule of when Crowe will be playing, you don’t want to pick a week where he’s not going to be there.  

• Study the wealth of statistical information available to you on the GCCGL.com blog 

• Get to know Crowe. Take him out to lunch. Buy him breakfast. Talk to him, I mean…. really talk to him. Try to find out who the real Crowe is and what makes him tick. With the stakes this high, every little detail could mean the difference between winning or losing. 

I think with money on the line, the kid will focus a little more and record his first victory in the GCCGL. The GCCGL will add a blog page dedicated to the Cleveland Pool with updated results, odds, money and comments. So, what do you think? Help us get this guy a “W” and have some fun in the process. 

Well, I went off on a tangent there. Sorry about that. I didn’t plan on it. I had a lot more to blog about like Marge getting his golf clubs stolen out of his car. Jeez Marge, really sorry to hear that but how much effort is it to press a button and lock your car? My wife and I always lock our cars and our doors all the time. Maybe it was because we both grew up in New Jersey in towns bordering the carjacking capital of the world, Newark, NJ.  Heck, we locked our cars when we drove. God forbid we stopped at a red light or at a drive-thru, we’d be carjacked or at the very least pistol-whipped and robbed. But alas, I’m out of time. Real quick, I thought the survey was great this week. The idea came from an old blog post from July 30, 2016 where we thought it would be funny to come up with some names of our GCCGL members if they were horses. You can read the Name That Horse blog post here if you wish. 

There were no really big winners this week. Putter Face beat The Process (21 –19). They were led by VanPelt who took 7.5 points. I already mentioned that Catalina Wine Mixer got their first team victory defeating Ballers…Schott Callers (20.5 – 19.5). They were led by Meat who managed 6.5 points.  Donkey’s Disciples and The Hackstreet Boys battled it out to a (20 – 20) tie. Hardly no movement this week at all which makes it perfect timing for the Stableford Scramble next week. This is the only week where there are no set points a team can grab. We’ll see how it goes. 

The low net winners were Snoodles (A/B) with a low net of 34 and Captain Hairy (C/D) with a low net of 33.  Congratulations to the winners! We continue on the Willows back with the second special event of the season, the Stableford Scramble. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ’em straight! 

George Almeida – GCCGL co-commissioner