2023 – Week 8
What is it about the GCCGGL Pink Ball event that brings out the worst swings of the season? There is something about those pink balls that stirs up all kinds of angst when it’s your turn to play it. Maybe it’s the fact that you don’t want to let your team down. Or worse, you certainly don’t want to lose the pink ball, that would be devastating.
Let me tell you a “true” story about a former GCCGL member who once lost a pink ball. The member’s name has been changed to protect their identity and protect the privacy of all those associated with him/her. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Once upon a time, “Skippy” lost a pink ball once and was ostracized from the foursome for the rest of the round. The shame and humiliation were too much to bear. His/Her long-time childhood friends had heard about the pink ball incident and had no choice but to kick him/her out of their weekend foursome. He/She/We/They/Them/Who….. (ok, enough, I’m going with the “him” pronoun from here on out! Please send any complaints to 859.572.8994 or email gccglcupcake@gmail.com). He took to drinking and gambling heavily and eventually this fractured his home life. His family found out what happened and was able to forgive him for the excessive drinking and gambling but could not get over the pink ball incident. Eventually his wife left him for a 3 handicapper, and he became estranged from his kids and the rest of his family. As if this wasn’t bad enough, all this had an effect on his work life as well. He overslept regularly and neglected his hyenine to the point where his co-workers formed a petition for him to “work from home” permanently. This made matters worse, as he was lucky to get in 30 minutes of work a day due to his tardiness and apathy and was ultimately fired from his long-time job with no severance or unemployment benefits. With no money, no family and no friends, he was forced to move into his 20-year-old car until that was eventually compounded and towed from an abandoned old Walmart parking lot to make way for a new Super Kroger shopping center. The last I heard, he was spotted outside of Gary, Indiana holding a sign that read “Cupcake Destroyed My Life“.
I know this is a sad story. One could only imagine that “Skippy’s” life could have turned out drastically different if only co-commissioner Cupcake would have purchased half-way decent pink balls instead of those cheap-ass pink balls that he provides us every year. For God’s sake, it’s like teeing up a cue ball. It’s all anyone can do from breaking their club head hitting those awful pink paper weights. I think we’d have better luck hitting a D-Cell Battery in the fairway than those pink rocks. And if you do manage to get lucky and hit it decently, good luck trying to find it! It’s bad enough that those pink balls are hard as a lead marble, but the sheen on those things make them disappear right off the driver. If you are lucky enough to get a beat on them through the air, the next challenge is finding them in the grass. It’s a nightmare.
As a result, we lost a LOT of pink balls during this year’s event. We started with 18 pink balls and 7 were returned. Seven. We lost over 60% of the pink balls this year. As pathetic as that is, I think it is GREAT! It’s hilarious! Seriously, is there anything funnier or more demoralizing than Syndrome handing Cupcake a plastic bag of nothing after his team lost all three pink balls? Where else are you going to get this kind of entertainment for $60?
That is the beauty of this event. It’s the allure, the reason of why we have this event in the GCCGL rotation. I guarantee, there is no other golf league at Kenton County who plays an event like this one, especially with the wrinkles we’ve added (i.e., lost balls). Does it f**k with your head? Sure, it does. But somehow, THAT is what makes it entertaining. Just an FYI, the commissioner’s office is discussing making some changes next year to potentially cap the Pink Ball score in a fairer way (at least for the D-Players). We’ll see.
The movement in the standings continue. With Go Putt Yourself’s last place finish in the Pink Ball Scramble, things have bunched up considerably in the standings. Everyone is still in this thing, I’m telling you, this is shaping up to be a finish for the ages!
The big winners this week were Return of the Cletus who won the Pink Ball scramble. They are hot right now and riding a 4-game winning streak! Meat Balls actually finished with the 3rd best scramble score but returned 2 pink balls and finished in second place. Courtesty Tap-In’s moved out of last place with their third-place finish. The Closest-to-the-pin winners were Zachary Stock (A/B) and Oliver Livermore (C/D). Congratulations! We are back to match-play format on the Pioneer front this week! We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ’em straight!
The Portuguese Warrior – GCCGL co-commissioner
