2021 – Week Seventeen

Damn George. You take back the blog for one week and BOOM goes the dynamite! How am I supposed to follow that? How am I supposed to keep these readers engaged after you seduce them with stories of broken refrigerators, broken toasters and trips to the Botanical Gardens in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Whew! My head’s spinning.

I guess I got my work cut out for me this week… I’ll start by mentioning a little place call Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Wolf Pack stayed at the luxurious Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino just 1 block north of Freemont Street in old Vegas.

If you love the smell of stale refer in the morning… this is the place for you.

You had a broken fridge?  We didn’t have a fridge. 

You a had a broken toaster?  We didn’t have a toaster.

What we had was a clean room to crash in for 4-6 hours a night…. And that was enough.

We also had a view of the roof-top pool.

If you squint hard enough you can see Danny and Nick.

Most importantly… we had a good time.

The Golf
The Paiute Golf Resort is one of the best golf properties I’ve ever stepped on as well as one of the toughest.  The tournament is set up to be  difficult.  The pin placements are tucked and the course is long… real long.  There’s just no room for error, and when the wind starts howling (and it did) it just becomes that much more difficult.  We finished in the middle of the pack.  By my count we left 5 strokes out there.  Three on Friday and two on Saturday.  Five strokes was the difference between 5^th place and where we finished.  I still believe we have the team to compete.  This is my team ride or die.

After an off-day on Sunday we drove 50 miles through the desert to the middle of nowhere to a Jack Nicklaus course… Coyote Springs. 

This quickly became the best Golf Course I’ve ever stepped foot on. I was simply amazed by this desert oasis. Lush and green. 9 lakes coming into play on 12 holes. Rock formations with waterfalls. Simply amazing. The pictures we took could not do it justice.

This course was long. 7,471 yards from the tips long. Large double and triple tiered greens… and just for good measure, even though located in the middle of the desert, Jack felt the need to put 107 sand bunkers on this course. It was the most difficult course I’ve ever played.

To give you an idea of how difficult the courses we played were, here are course ratings for some other courses you may have heard of…

Augusta National: 74/135
Bethpage Black: 75.4/144
Whistling Straits: 75.6/146
Pebble Beach: 74.3/144
Shinnecock Hills: 74.5/140
Oakmont: 76.8/144

Here’s the course ratings for the (4) courses we played last week.
Coyote Springs: 76.8/149
Snow Mountain (Paiute): 73/126
Sun Mountain (Paiute): 73.4/140
The Wolf (Paiute): 75.5/145

And just for a few giggles… Here’s the course ratings for the Courses at Kenton County
The Pioneer: 68.2/115
The Willows: 72.6/137

Food & Drink
Maybe the best thing about Vegas is the fact that it is a tourist destination… meaning that thousands and restaurants and bars are competing for your dollar. To compete in that type of market your food has to be great and the service has to be top notch… and it was in both cases. I never even had an average meal. 2 of places affiliated with our hotel, Pizza Rock and the Triple George Grill were both fantastic. I believe we visited the Pizza place (3) times in 5 days.

The only issue I had was finding a place that serves Seagrams 7. I love my 7&7’s but it took me until Saturday to find a bar/restaurant/casino that even had Seagrams.

Most places wanted to give me Crown Royal… Crown Royal? Did I look like a Louisville Cardinal fan?
Was a wearing a tank top? Did I have a line beard? No.

The Nightlife
What happens in Vegas… stays in Vegas. However, I will share 3 things with you.
1 – I can’t remember which day, but one afternoon after golf I decided to take a nap before going out for the evening. I don’t know for certain what the other 3 did while I napped. I finally caught up with them at the Circa Sports book. All three were drinking and smoking cigars but not placing any bets. All three had a sh*t eating grin on their face. I’ve never been more certain in my life, that 3 men just buried a hooker in the desert.
2 – Saturday Night. The birth of “Palamino Nick”. I can’t give too much away, so I’ll try to describe, as best I can, Saturday at the Palamino using only gambling/betting terms.
“Coming out”, “the Flop”, “Seven out”, “Splash the Pot”, “Double Down” “On Tilt” “Stickman”, “All In”, “Press it Up” “Hard Eight” “Pocket Rockets” and “Busted”
3 – Yes. I got mugged on Freemont Street by a Vegas street walker whom John and I refused to “party” with. She got (only) $20.00… Loose singles leftover from the Palamino and NOT my wallet. I got a good story.

On with the GCCGL…

Quick side note… How do you write about Fort Wayne, IN, and NOT mention Fawn Leibowitz? Remember her? She was the 20-year old sophomore, sociology major attending Emily Dickinson College that died in that kiln explosion. She was gonna make a pot for Otter…

I feel like we should start calling George “Botanical Gardens George”… but that just doesn’t have a good ring to it.

BATTLE GOLF
I like Battle Golf. Always have. The ONLY thing that would make Battle Golf better is if we had to dress up as super-heroes and villains. Think of the matches this week. Can you imagine Leininger dressed up as Superman and Rich Parvesse dressed as Lex Luthor? Or Ollie as Batman and Ethridge as the Joker?

I get it. Some people don’t like Battle Golf. Again, for several players this week, we had another “gimmick”. BUT… until you can come up with something better…. It’s here to stay. Personally, I find it difficult to believe that most people want 20 weeks of match play. I think most like the “team” aspect, but if you go to 20 weeks of match play then there is no reason to even have teams. The draft is one of the best things about this league. If you go away from having teams, then say goodbye to the draft.

It’s going to be extremely difficult to find a format over 20 weeks that appeals to everyone. Having said that, everybody should have an opinion. I believe the commissioners are willing to listen to fresh ideas. I believe they’re willing to have real conversations about improving the league. Simply bitching about it won’t change it. Bring your ideas to the table and let’s have some good dialogue about it.

T.W.I.G. Notes
There’s only 3 weeks left and things are definitely tight at the top.

After US Open Week, Hoping to Tie was 8 points out of 1st. Pete Goldenberg decided to take 2 weeks off and his team made a move without him. Hoping to Tie now trails the Rollin’ 60’s by 2.5 points. I never thought I’d say these words but “hurry back, Pete.” Apparently, your team is better without you.

The current standings are as follows:
Rollin’ 60’s: 354.5
Hoping to Tie: 352.0
Dustined to Fail: 334.5
Aces Ventura: 330.0
Good if Joe Shows: 319.0
Designated Drivers: 298.0

If you broke those numbers down by Match Play and Scrambles, the standing wouldn’t change all that much. The Top 3 teams would remain the Top 3 teams. The standings would look like this:
Match Play (only)
Hoping to Tie: 277.5
Dustin to Fail: 271.5
Rollin’ 60’s: 264.0
Aces Ventura: 260.0
Good if Joe Shows: 248.5
Designated Drivers: 238.5

Scrambles/Team Events
Rollin’ 60’s: 83.0
Hoping to Tie: 74.5
Dustined to Fail: 70.5
Good if Joe Shows: 70.5
Aces Ventura: 70.0
Designated Drivers: 59.5

Points Leaders
Dahm: 75.5
Morell: 69.0
Livermore: 67.5

Points per Match Leaders
Kreyling: 6.1
Nill: 6.0
Almeida: 5.9

Wins Leaders
Dahm: 10
Kreyling: 8
Nill: 8
Ethridge: 8

Win Percentage Leaders:
Kreyling: 0.850
Dahm: 0.808
Nill: 0.800

Money Leaders:
Nill: $45.34
Parvesse: $42.66
Freeman: $42.66

The Low Net Winners were
A/B – Turnwald (35)
C/D – Ethridge, Cap and Rayburn all tied (34)

I didn’t think much about the Low Net winners until this text exchange came through on my phone…

I saw “new record” and had to take a closer look. Apparently what they were talking about here is that Cap shot a 47 and took a 10 on hole 15. Ethridge was suggesting that if (Big If) Cap had taken a Par, he would have netted a 28 and possibly a new an all-time low in the net category. So, I decided to look and see how many times somebody netted a score below 30. I went back and looked at scores since 2011, and what’s really interesting is that the (2) guys discussing this being a record, ALREADY hold a low net record.

The ALL-TIME record for low net is 25. Mike Ethridge and Tyler Verst share this record. Both scores were shot on the front of the Pioneer.

The record for low net on the back of the Pioneer is 26… Held by Allen Bloomuff.

Cap shares the low net record for the front of the Willows with Easy Eddie Petryk with a 27

Across all courses a “29” has been netted 22 times.
A “28” has been netted 21 times.
A “27” has been netted 12 times
A “26” has been netted 4 times.
A “25” has been netted twice.

Additionally, Rayburn tied for low net… and Lost. How many times has that happened?
Yeah… I didn’t go look that up.

WORD on the RANGE
Word on the range is that Danny Roller actually kept a diary of the trip to Vegas. Hopefully, Danny will share this with the league.

As always,

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

Big Donkey