2020 – Week Eighteen

The 25^th anniversary season is officially over. Congratulations to Duer, Cook, Freeman and Etheridge, aka China Virus! Although they tried to give it away with a three-week losing streak and finishing dead last in the best ball scramble, they still outlasted the rest of the league.

Aside from all the jokes, we are happy for China Virus’ success. But it’s like my grandfather used to say, “Success is like a fart, nobody likes it unless it’s their own”. In the end, China Virus was very deserving of this prestigious honor, but everyone wants to win the GCCGL Championship, not for the trophy and certainly not for the money but for the bragging rights. Just ask Couzin’ Joe. He finally ended his 10-year drought and won his first GCCGL Championship! He was feeling pretty good last Thursday night, and he should. And what about that Ace of Base loving Nick Duer? Duer ended his 10-year drought last season and he follows that up with back-to-back championships! Did anyone happen to notice Nick’s demeaner before the round last night? He was unusually reserved, distant and some might even say, cold. I couldn’t tell if it was focus, nerves or a bad piece of meat he had for lunch. But that’s what this league does to you. How about Serkan “The Assassin” Freeman? This kid joins the league last year and racks up GCCGL Championships in his first two seasons. We checked the statistical archives but we couldn’t find where anyone else has ever done that before. Gotta give Serkan credit for picking that team. He saw something no one else did. Finally, I think we all know that much of China Virus’ success was due to the stellar, once in a lifetime, season that Mike “Swiper” Etheridge put together. Yes Mike, your nickname is still “Swiper”. It will always be Swiper. GCCGL nicknames are like cockroaches, once you have them, they never really go away. But who cares? You have the first, of probably many, GCCGL Championship trophies. Congratulations to all of you!

Then there’s the flip side. Poor Kurt “Lip Gloss” Kreyling. This was supposed to be the year he ended his GCCGL Championship drought. Kurt had the second-best statistical season of anyone in the league this season. His team comprised of two legitimate A-Players and two GCCGL Hall of Famers. THIS was supposed to be the Year of Lip Gloss. It was supposed to be easy but as we all know, nothing in this league is easy. But just when you think that it may never happen for LG, there’s a silver lining. Both Duer and Cook ended their droughts after 10 years. It has been 10 years, on the dot, without a championship for Lip Gloss so that means if things go like they have been for the last two seasons, Kreyling will finally join the club of GCCGL Champions in 2021. A club he so desperately wants to join.

I got a little nostalgic hanging out with everyone on the back patio of the clubhouse, reminiscing about how this league has survived 25 years and taken on a life of its own. When I relocated to the area from New Jersey 27 years ago, it was supposed to be temporary. My wife and I didn’t want to move at the time. We were newlyweds and had just bought a modest 3-bedroom ranch “down the shore” with the beach just a short 10 minutes away with lots of friends and family around us. We were happy. As a matter of fact, we rented a house in Taylor Mill and kept a bunch of our things in boxes in the garage because we had no intention of staying. Then Cincinnati started to grow on us, she found a job, my job got better, and we decided to give it a shot. Shortly afterward, I decided to form this league without truly knowing anything about golf. Twenty-five years later, this thing is still going strong. Make no mistake, I had a lot of help from fine folks like Cletus, Jason, and Kurt. I may have started this league, but those guys built it. The friendships that have formulated because of this league is what is most satisfying to me personally. Many of us would never have gotten the opportunity to know each other if not for this league. So, for that, I’m grateful.

By the way, I think most of us all agreed that the food and atmosphere on the back patio at the golf course was actually very good. The staff was great and the wings were actually very good.

The final Best Ball Scramble results are as follows.

QPC was down 26.5 points three weeks ago and made up 24.5 of those points, falling 2 points short. It came down to one bad decision on hole #10 when for some reason, we over-thinked it. We had a 20-foot putting opportunity for Eagle and decided to go with Roddy’s ball just to the right but in the rough about 20 feet away, just so we can get his drive out of the way. Big mistake. We wound up not getting up and down and that was the difference. Oh well. Moral of the story, “always take the putt in a scramble”. It just wasn’t in the cards for QPC. We were never even close to bogeying a hole and had numerous birdie looks and two chances for Eagle but didn’t capitalize. PW struggled off the tee this week. My drives were as useless as ashtrays on motorcycles. After one good drive on #10, the only other really good drive came on #17, Par 5, which we used and got on the green in 2. If not for that, we were prepared to go to the tee on #18 with everyone’s clubs in the bag, except mine. I’m so happy it didn’t come down to that.

The winners of the CTP competition were Lip Gloss (A/B) and The Assassin for (C/D). The Longest putt winner was Cap. Congratulations to the winners! The Kenton County Golf Course has told us they will keep our tee slots available for any GCCGL members who want to take advantage of this beautiful Autumn weather and play some golf until we run out of daylight. This includes the subs! COVID-19 proved to be bad for our subs this year. There just weren’t many opportunities. So, if you want to play now, no pressure just golf, please let me know. I’m willing if you are. The annual GCCGL Trophy Awards Luncheon Ceremony will be difficult to pull off while everyone is working from home, but we’ll throw out a date and place in a central location and see if it sticks.

I’d like to wrap up this season with a HUGE THANKS to Jason and Kurt for everything they do. As you know, I’m just a figurehead. Those guys do all the heavy lifting. I really can’t thank those guys enough. On behalf of co-commissioners Cupcake and Lip Gloss, it was a pleasure serving as your golf league commissioners. Thanks for a great season and we hope to see all of you next year and with any luck, perhaps add a 6^th team back.

PW – GCCGL co-commissioner