2020 – Week Twelve

Welcome my friends. It feels like an eternity since I last blogged about the happenings of this great golf league of ours. As I sit here in the wee morning hours on a beautiful Saturday morning, I’m feeling right at home sipping my Caramel Drizzle flavored coffee with a heaping tablespoon of sugar-free hazelnut creamer and listening to ELO bang out a classic favorite, Evil Woman. Hmm… what’s that? Who’s ELO? For God’s sake, don’t tell me the millennials of this league don’t know who ELO is? E….L….O? Electric Light Orchestra? They’re only the best, most underappreciated rock and roll band in the world. Still not ringing a bell?  Dozens of classics including “Mr. Blue Sky”, “Don’t Bring Me Down”, “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”…..still nothin’? Jeff Lynne? Harmonized background vocals? A big-ass spaceship on stage? Ah forget it. Youth is wasted on the young.

Last week featured the first rain out in the GCCGL that I can remember. I wasn’t in town, but it must have been a monsoon for the GCCGL NOT to play. It all worked out though. Co-commissioner’s CC and LG left it up to the members who overwhelmingly voted to re-schedule Pink Ball for this week and I’m glad they did. I love this event even though I’m one of the C/D players who have nightmares about this event. One nightmarish hole by a C/D player (or any player for that fact) can sink your team’s championship dreams. Back in 2018, we even had one C/D player jump in a scum-filled pond looking for his lost pink ball because he didn’t want to let down his team. This event will do that to you.

Good times indeed. It is also one of those league events that can shake up the standings and separate the men from the boys. It didn’t quite do that, but it certainly rattled some teams and shook up the standings once again. The biggest news has to be Cupcake’s Exotics finishing 3^rd overall and moving out of the GCCGL cellar for the first time since week 1!

The last thing I’ll say about the 2020 Pink Ball event is, “What the hell is up with those Nitro Pink Balls that co-commissioner issued?” I know the GCCGL has run into tough financial times recently with the league having to cut back to 5 teams because of COVID and web site hosting and domain registration costs increasing each and every year, but certainly we can do better than those damn Pink Balls. It was like hitting a rock off the tee. If that wasn’t bad enough, you couldn’t find those pink suckers to save your life! They might as well been grass colored or invisible. Holy crap! I heard stories from every team about how much time was wasted looking for those god-forsaken pink menaces. And what was up with the “sheen” on those balls? It was like looking directly into PW’s bald, sweaty head, in the sunlight. It was impossible to stop those pinks balls on the aerated greens. Watching players chip their pink balls was like watching a Yorkie puppy scooting across a freshly cleaned  carpet after doing his “business”.  It was quick and disturbing.

There are 6 weeks left in the season with Battle Golf and the Best Ball Scramble left. Plenty of time for all the teams to make a move on first place China Virus, who, all of a sudden, can’t seem to lose. What’s gotten into this team? This team couldn’t spell PAR six weeks ago and was sitting in 4^th place just 5.5 points from last place but have completely turned it around. Has there been some controversy? Of course there has. The whole, “it’s good if it goes” fiasco during the Stableford Scramble was a complete public relations disaster for this eclectic group of misfits, but they seemed to put that behind them after Couzin’ Joe’s classy public apology. Personally, I have nothing against the China Virus team members, I like them. Nick “Potter” Duer is a fellow east cost native such as myself, Couzin’ Joe is a great guy who is much funnier than he’s given credit for, Swiper is a quiet good kid who just wants to play golf and Serkan “The Assassin” Freeman…….uh….has good hair? Nah, I’m just kidding. I like Serkan. Serkan and I go way back to last season when we helped put together a wire-to-wire GCCGL championship season together.

But the word on the street has it that they are the “most hated” GCCGL team in the history of the league. Why is that? Is it fake news? It is jealously? I don’t know. All I’ll say is that I don’t hate them. I don’t hate anyone. As I’ve stated many times before, the Portuguese people are incapable of hating anyone or anything, except for maybe “truck nuts”. Seriously, does anyone really need to see swinging ceramic nuts from someone’s tow rig?

Daylight is dwindling quickly! Because of the COVID pandemic, the league has been extended to the middle of September which is going to create a problem when it comes to daylight. As we get closer to the end of the season, I encourage everyone to try and get to the course a littler earlier than normal and tee off as soon as there is an open tee. I will work with the clubhouse at KCGC to make sure that they don’t stick any yahoos in front of us. Speaking of yahoos, how about that moron who injected himself smack in the middle of our league play this week? He just drove up and started playing through. I heard it was Syndrome’s brother-in-law.

The final results of the Pink Ball Scramble are as follows:

The CTP winners were Big Donkey (A/B) and The Assassin (C/D). Congratulations to the winners! We play this week on the Pioneer front. The schedule is set! I hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ‘em straight!

PW – GCCGL co—commissioner