2021 – Week 20

Rollin’ 60’s 2021 GCCGL CHAMPIONS

Going into the final night, “Hoping 2 Tie’s” path to the title was simple.
Finish two spots higher than the Rollin’ 60’s and the Championship is yours.
Win the championship and Pete wins the Money title.
Win the Championship and Mike & Mike are crowned Co-MVP’s.

The Rollin’ 60’s were bad… finishing a disappointing 5th in the final scramble.

Hoping 2 Tie was worse. They finished 6th.

Experience matters. In my opinion, the biggest difference on Thursday between the two teams was the subs they used. Cletus stepped in for the Portuguese Warrior, while Pete elected to go with a rookie named Ryan “Korn Ferry” McCrone. Yep… Pete found a ringer fresh off the Korn Ferry tour, from a double secret sub list that only he and 2 of the 3 GCCGL commissioners had access to, to fill in for Mike Morrell. It didn’t matter.

As a grizzled vet, Cletus turned out to be the calming influence the 60’s needed down the stretch. As I continued to hit tee shots out of bounds, Cletus started piping ‘em right down the middle, as well as sinking the birdie putt on 8 to clinch the championship. The 2 best balls I hit all night were when I stepped on a rake. Ouch.

On the flip side… the pressure was just too much for the rookie. In all fairness to Ryan, Pete should have known better than to put him in that position. Pete is well aware of the “League Effect” and should have known the stage was too big for any rookie. Playing the Korn Ferry tour is one thing, but trying to win a GCCGL championship was simply on a level Ryan wasn’t ready for. The rook looked to be visibly shaken as he sliced his first tee shot 2 fairways over. By the time he calmed down and settled in… it was too late.

Tee Times Matter… at least in the final scramble. Mike Ethridge will tell you he has no interest in knowing where he stands at any given point in any given match. He’s read books on it. I guess those authors never played golf. One of the advantages to teeing off last (besides not having to pay for beer) is that you can watch what is going on in front of you. I had a number in mind before we teed off… what I thought we needed to shoot to stay in front of “Hoping 2 Tie”. That number was 29. Most nights I woulda been furious with how we were scoring. However, we knew we only had to beat “Hoping 2 Tie” and because we were able to watch every shot they hit, we knew exactly what they were doing in front of us. I believe it allowed us to relax and take advantage of the situation.

I think my favorite part of the night though, was before we even teed off. As Rayburn and I grilled Pete and Ryan about his sub status and how he came to be… a visibly frustrated Pete turns and says “NOW I really wanna beat you guys”. Think about that for a second. Hoping 2 Tie was in 2nd place by a mere 5 points… but it took him getting upset at me and Rayburn right begore he teed off… to actually want to try to win. “Hoping 2 Tie” is the gift that keeps on giving.

I LOVE the head games. I love the shenanigans. It’s part of what makes this league great.

I’d also love to give a summary of everything else that happened on the course Thursday… but honestly, nobody talked about it. Nobody had any worthwhile stories to tell. We went out to Longneck’s in Wilder afterwards but as I recall Serkan and Rayburn talked shop (approval levels out of Milan) and Eiser and I argued about ties. He was one the 8 that voted to have ties. I only knew the exact order of finish when Jason posted the results early this morning.

The final scramble results were:
Good if Joe Shows (28)
Designated Drivers (30) tie
Aces Ventura (30) tie
Dustined to Fail (30) tie
Rollin’ 60’s (31)
Hoping 2 Tie (32)

So… How’d they do it? How did the Rollin’ 60’s come out on top.

As a team they finished the season 1st in Team Even Points with 91.
As a team they finished the season 2nd in Match Play Points with 317.
Rayburn had a solid overall season going 8-3-2 and averaging 5.7 points per match.
Almeida had a solid overall season going 7-2-2 and averaging 6.0 points per match.
Eiser had a great first half of the season going 4-2-1 and averaging 5.6 points per match.
Harris started slow but had the best second half going 6-1 and averaging 5.9 points per match.

It was a total team effort that also includes the subs.

Brian Turnwald (Florida Scramble), Troy Bachman and Allen Bloomhuff (Montezuma’s Revenge) all stepped up to help the Rollin 60’s win those events, and in Match Play subs accounted for 45 points (2nd in the league) and 5.0 points per match (also 2nd in the league).

Finally, these two photos were taken over the weekend as we celebrated our victory…

TWIG NOTES

Team Standings (FINAL)
Rollin’ 60’s: 408.0
Hoping to Tie: 400.0
Dustined to Fail: 493.5
Good If Joe Shows: 376.5
Aces Ventura: 376.0
Designated Drivers: 349.0

Money Leaders (FINAL)
Harris: $77.33
Goldenberg: $70.33
Rayburn: $69.33

Points Leaders (FINAL)
Dahm: 81.0
Morell: 80.5
Ethridge: 80.0
Points per Match Leaders (FINAL)
Nill: 6.04
Kreyling: 5.96
Almeida: 5.95

Win Percentage Leaders (FINAL)
Nill: 0.833 ($20.00 Winner)
Kreyling: 0.792
Ethridge: 0.750
Morell: 0.750

Wins Leaders (FINAL)
Nill: 10
Ethridge: 10
Dahm: 10

Palamino Nick and Kevin Klein were throwing darts on Thursday. They were the closest to the pin winners.

2021 MVP
I’d LOVE to hear from the rest of you on the 2021 MVP.
I’ve asked for feedback previously (on this and other topics), but have received almost none.

You can text me: 859.640.6637
You can email me: Michael.Harris@prysmiangroup.com or michael.harris41@yahoo.com
You can also leave comments here on this website… see below.

As I stated last week. This is an arbitrary award, and with the exception of “bragging rights” the winner gets nothing for being voted MVP.

Having said this… I was down to Mike and Mike as Co-MVP’s or Jason Nill.

Last week I stated “If (Big IF), Hoping 2 Tie beats the Rollin’ 60’s Thursday for the title, then I think they’ve done enough to earn the “Co-MVP” award… especially when you consider they had to drag Pete’s ass (2-6-4) into the winner’s circle”. Well… Hoping 2 Tie finished last on Thursday… so in my mind, they didn’t do enough.

The other option was Nill. At the end of the day, in my opinion, Jason had the best season. He finished tied for 1st in Wins. He led the league in winning percentage and he led the league in points per match just edging out his teammate, Kurt Kreyling.

My vote goes to Jason Nill for the 2021 MVP.
(Leininger gets my vote for Rookie of the Year).

Final Thought
Speaking of Jason, I’m extremely excited to go through all the stats Jason sent out (fantasitic job!)… but it’s gonna take a while to really dig into all this information. I’m going to do 1 more blog next week… a final “End of the Season” blog and I’ll use a portion of that time to take a deeper dive into those stats and tell you what really sticks out to me.

I will leave you with this though…

TOTAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
Mike Harris 8
Tom Brady 7
Jason Nill 6
John Rayburn 5
Oliver Livermore 5

Until next week…

Golf is Hard.
If it were easy, it’d be called “your mom”.

8x GCCGL Champion
Big Donkey