2021 – Week Thirteen

Well… it may have taken until the 15th hole, but I guess you can say Montezuma got his revenge.

Whether you liked it or not, the newest event to the GCCGL, “Montezuma’s Revenge”, has been a hot topic of conversation since Thursday night.

Some didn’t care for it. A few others were indifferent, but most of the players I’ve spoken with seemed to like it. There were some issues that need to be worked through, but for the most part, I thought it was a blast. Let’s break it down, shall we?

Due to hole 17 being the “pink ball” hole, the adjusted par for the back 9 of the Pioneer was 41 instead of 36… and not a single team shot even par. The winning team, the Rollin’ 60’s, shot a 1 over 42 thanks in large part to their (2) subs Allen Bloomhuff and Troy Bachman.

The official results look like this:

Rollin’ 60’s: 42
Jerry’s Kids: 44
Aces Ventura: 44
Good if Joe Shows: 45
Dustined to Fail: 47
Designated Drinkers: 48

Now what’s really interesting to me is that this event really came down to 2 holes.
#15 – Alternate Shot
#18 – Worst Ball

Through the first 5 holes of the event, the teams were pretty evenly matched.
Jerry’s Kids and Dustined to Fail were both -2 after 5 holes.
The Designated Drivers and the Rollin’ 60’s were both -1 after 5, while Aces Ventura and Good if Joe Shows were both even.

If you take into account holes 16 and 17, the teams looked like this.
Dustined to Fail and the Rollin’ 60’s were -2
Jerry’s Kids, the Designated Drivers and Good if Joe Shows were all -1, while Aces Ventura was even.

No team was going extremely low, but nobody was really bad either, and again, figuring in these 7 holes (only) it was pretty evenly matched.

Hole 15 (alternate shot) jumped up and caused some issues for every team but the Rollin’ 60’s and Dustined to Fail. The Designated Drinkers, Aces Ventura and Jerry’s kids all took double bogeys while Good if Joe Shows took a triple.

But the hole that everyone is talking about is hole 18… the worst ball hole. This is a brilliant concept on paper… on a heavily crowded Kenton County golf course on league night… not so much.

The scores for this hole:
Dustined to Fail: 12 (8 over par)
Designated Drivers: 10 (6 over)
Rollin’ 60’s: 7 (3 over)
Jerry’s Kids: 6 (2 over)
Good if Joe Shows: 6 (2 over)
Aces Ventura: 5 (1 over)

The concept behind this hole is that your team is only as good as your “D” golfer. More often than not, the “D” player is going to take the majority of the strokes in this game… followed by your ‘C”.

First, what makes this interesting, is that unlike “best ball” where most of the time we’re all in agreement on the best shot… this game is much more subjective. What truly is the “worst” shot? If you hit one straight but only 70 yards, is coming in from 230 yards worse than being directly behind a tree from 140? Depends on who you ask. Once you reach the green, which is more difficult… a 12-footer straight with very little break or a 5-footer from the side of ridge that might break 18-20 inches?

Secondly, the pressure. NOBODY wants to be the guy to hit that worst shot and for a few people out there Thursday, whether they admit it or not, the pressure got to them. For instance, take the (2) teams that scored in double digits on that hole… Dustined to Fail and Designated Drivers.

The C/D players for Dustined to Fail are Ollie and Dustin Allen.
Ollie’s average score on that hole over that past 2 seasons is a “5” (that covers scores for that hole.
Dustin, who’s only been in the league this year, has only played the hole 2x prior to Thursday. His scores… a “5” and a “3”.

The C/D players for the Designated Drivers are Kevin Klein and Rich Parvesse.
Both guys, again being new to the league, have only played the hole 2x each.
Kevin scored a “6” and “6”. Rich scored a “5” and a “4”.

I decided to take this a little further. I went back and took a quick look at ALL the C/D scores for hole 18 over the past 2 seasons… a total of 6 rounds played on the back of the Pioneer. I came up with 52 scores for an average of 5.15. The highest recorded score as a “7” (posted 3 times) and the lowest score was Dustin’s “3”.

The ONLY explanation for shooting a “12” and a “10” was the mounting pressure of not hitting the worst shot combined with knowing that things are really starting to back up on the tee behind you.

When the last team walked of the green, the ENTIRE league behind us, was waiting on the 18th tee.

*Side Note: I didn’t care. That league can kiss the Big Donkey’s ass. We were nice to them all year and then they had to pull that stunt the week prior asking us to move to the parking lot so they could hit their approach shots. We’ve been holding court there after golf, under those trees for 25 years.
The nerve of some people…

The result of the Montezuma’s revenge means that Jerry’s kids still hold the lead… but that gap was closed and the Rollin’ 60’s jumped Dustined to Fail and now are in 2nd place.

The current standings are as follows:
Jerry’s Kids: 269.0
Rollin’ 60’s: 265.5
Dustined to Fail: 257.0
Aces Ventura: 251.0
Good if Joe Shows: 244.0
Designated Drivers: 221.0

Word on the Range:
Last week I wrote “we play the 1st place team during US Open week. Yes, Morell, I have that date circled on my calendar. In the words of Toby Keith, “I may not be as good as I once was… but I’m as good once as I ever was”. Well… Word on the range is that Mike Morell now ducking me, so yep… I’m calling him out.

I’ve been Meat’s biggest fan all year. I’ve picked on a number of people, but I’ve been nothing but complimentary of Mike all year. The last thing I wrote about Mike was “Currently the Best Player on the Best Team. Meat is tearing through the league like a well-seasoned ribeye. He’s dominating all the statistical categories that matter. He’s 1st in points. He’s tied for 1st in wins. He’s tied for 2nd in Winning Percentage at 75% and he’s currently in 3rd in Points per Match.
Expect even bigger things in the 2nd half of the season as I believe he’s just now entering his prime.
Meat… It’s what’s for dinner.” And that’s just one example.

But now that I’m starting to play a little better, Mike is running scared.

Coward (kou-erd)
Noun
A person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, etc.; a timid or easily intimidated person.

Adjective
Lacking courage: very fearful or timid.

Synonyms for Coward
Wimp; Baby; Chicken; Gutless; Yellow; Yellow belly; Scaredy-cat; Fraidy-cat; Morell

Ok. Ok. Ok… I get it. If you’d like to believe the story, he’s telling… Mike is on vacation and this has been planned for some time now.

To be the best… you gotta beat the best. And if you can’t beat the best… then get a sub to stand in for you. This is the real issue that I have. Yeah, yeah… it might be smart to let me play your card during US Open week, but it’s a cowardly move. You still have 10 days to find a sub but you’re not even gonna try. You’re just gonna let me play your card. You’re hoping for a tie… and everyone knows how I feel about ties. As things sit right now, you’re the best player on the best team. You’re playing “not to lose” instead of “playing to win”, and that’s why your team will NOT be in 1st place come week 20. How do you expect the rest of your team to play, when their leader is simply “hoping to tie. In fact, that’s a great team name. You guys, from this moment on, are not Jerry’s Kids. From this point forward your team will be known as “Hoping to Tie”.

There are compound shortages all over the country. We’ve seen it in the wire and cable industry and now, word on the range is that people are having difficulty finding grips for their clubs. Our friend Greg at Mega Golf in Batavia was the first to tell me about it, and now I’ve heard others discussing this on the range.

I’ve re-gripped several sets of clubs this season for family and friends and I’ve been using an online place called www.grips4less.com. If you’re in the market for grips, they have a fantastic selection and I’ve had no issues with them being out of stock on any grip I was interested in. I usually have the grips in 2-3 days. And if you need somebody to install them, I can do that for you.

Vegas Baby, Vegas.

As you all know by now, The Vegas Four are heading to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada to in the 2-Day, 4-Man Best Ball Event at the America’s Golf Festival.

Last week, I said we’d be willing to place any bets that anyone might be interesting in placing… and I still will. Give us the money and tell us what you want, and we’ll take care of it.

Additionally, this week, I’m going to suggest something else. Everyone in the league throw in $5 dollars. We’ll have Nill, send out a with 5 bets to choose from. The bet with the most votes wins, and we’ll place that bet as we’re cleaning Vegas out. The winnings go back to the GCCGL league fund.

Finally, Danny Roller has once again put together a round of Golf at Stonelick Hills. This has been going on for approx 8 years… Always on the Friday before Labor Day. This year the date is Friday, September 3rd.

Danny reserves 5 tee-times to accommodate 20 golfers. I believe Danny is still looking for 2 golfers this year to fill out the foursomes. If your interested, please contact Danny.

I had a request from Rich Parvesse for the blog this week… but I’m running out of time, so I’ll try to get to it next week. Until then…

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

Big Donkey