2024 – Week 4
The second event of the season, Pot Luck, was a smashing success! Play was fast! There was plenty of light, so that shouldn’t be a concern until late August. The windy conditions made things interesting. We also had a total of 5 subs this week! Great job! I was beginning to worry about the subs list this season. I sent out a couple of emails looking for subs for my team and only received one response. But that is all that was needed! Speaking of subs, we continue to add more and more subs each week. Brady Gosney is single-handedly replenishing the subs list with young, 20-somethings. Where is he meeting all these guys?
I’m just going to come out and say it…. apparently all of a sudden, I’m a good golfer. After 30 years of thinking that I’m a terrible, to bad, to mediocre golfer, I had no idea that moving up 10 feet would make me a respectable golfer. I’m a 9 handicap on the Willows back. That’s right. Comparing my handicap to last week’s field, PW was tied for the 7th best (as far as handicaps go). I’m damn near close to competing for the A/B low net! I’m rubbin’ elbows with the Kreyling’s (4) and the Goldenberg’s (4) of the world. I’m swapping technique tips with Roddy (7), Gosney (8), Etheridge (9) and Crowe (9). I have finally arrived! All because I moved to the yellow tees. I mean, Brian “Scratch” Turnwald was only giving me 5 strokes this week. The guy’s nickname is Scratch, as in scratch golfer, and I’m only getting 5 strokes. Now, I ask you, does any of this sound right to you?
If you search for the word “handicap” on the GCCGL blog, it will bring back 193 results. Make that 194 after this post. The point is, there’s been a LOT of GCCGL blog material gleamed from complaining about the handicap system going back to the Cletus Handicap System all the way to the World Handicap System. Many folks have contributed to these discussions over the years, including me. It might be worth your while to click the links above and read them at your leisure. It will give you a good history of where we’ve started and where we are now as the premiere golf league in the greater Cincinnati region and perhaps the entire Ohio Valley.
Putting all this aside, let’s get back to my problem. There was a little confusion about the handicaps which co-commissioner Cupcake rectified prior to tee time. He accidently sent out the Pioneer handicaps instead of the Willows. Great! I knew there had to be a mistake! No way I could be a 9 on the hardest course at Kenton County Golf Course. Everyone is opening the sheet all around us like children opening Christmas presents and happily exclaiming how their handicap went up one, two or more strokes! You should have seen the look on their faces. It was pure joy, like a little kid on Christmas morning. That’s why you can imagine the look on PW’s face when he opened the new HC sheet. It was a much different look. Imagine an old man, on the day before Halloween, his house just egged by the neighborhood kids, toilet paper strung all over his Magnolia trees and a flaming bad of dog poop burning on his porch, stuck on the toilet, constipated for days and swallowing Metamucil pills like Tic Tacs with his eyes protruding about one third of his eye sockets. That’s the look on my face when to my surprise, I saw my handicap was still a 9. It was a 9 for the Pioneer back, it was a 9 for the Willows front and sure as shit, was a 9 for the Willows back. You screwed me again Cupcake!
OK, enough of this. It took me a while to realize that this isn’t Cupcake’s fault. He just plugs the numbers into the handicap system and it does its thing. If Cupcake says my HC is a 9, then it’s a 9. I think it actually went down after my last round. Don’t matter. I will accept it, as I feel we all should including you, Jim Allen. I noticed last Thursday night during the post-round libations, that you too have been holding on to the hate and the confusion like I have. My advice is to just let it go like a Jason Winkler drive into the woods. You will feel better and thus, play better. This is all part of my new golfing podcast, ZenGolf with PW, available on your favorite podcast app. I will embrace the fact that my 9-hole handicap is no longer double digits. Afterall, I actually did shoot my “handicap” (net 36) on the hardest course we play. So why am I rambling on like a whiney little punk? It’s simple, I needed blog material.
In other news, we continue to experience scorecard “issues”, this time it was another seasoned veteran Cletus who made a bonehead mistake. Cletus wound up playing Ethridge’s card after Mike was a late scratch and couldn’t make the tee time. Cupcake didn’t know that. As far as he new, everyone showed or had a sub lined up. Cletus hands in the following card to the GCCGL Commissioner’s office.
Do you see any mention of playing the CARD on here? Based on this, Cupcake would have no reason to think that Cletus play Etheridge. Well, Cupcake being the perfectionist that he is, makes sure that all the scores are correct and the proper allocation of points are verified. He revised Cletus’ scorecard based on Cletus playing Etheridge, not the CARD and posted the scores. Then he receives a text from Cletus later that day, stating that the points were wrong because he played the card! We all know that Cupcake DOES NOT like changing the scores AFTER they are posted. I can vouch that it is a pain in the ass. Therefore, once the scores are posted, it’s FINAL. Right, wrong or indifferent, they ain’t changing. However, CC took pity on the old man and gave him a break this time due to the early onset of dementia. Let that be a lesson to all of you. Get that scorecard right BEFORE you hand it in.
Finally, we started building the Cupcake’s Cupboard section. We added a new section to the Home Page on the right side for easy access. To my surprise, there was an addition to the cupboard late Sunday night! Check it out and open the cupboard!
The big winners this week were Our D is Better Than Yours who nabbed (23 pts). They were led by Crowe who sneaked in (7 pts). Meanwhile, Vanillas Gorillas finished with (21.5 pts). They were led by Steve “Vanilla Gorilla” Wethington who managed (7 pts). The Clubhouse Cowboys also grabbed (21.5 pts). They were led by Gosney, Tally and Martin with (6 pts each). The Low Net winner for (A/B) was Brian “Scratch” Turnwald with a low net of (34) and for (C/D) Jack “Sandbag” Tally with a low net of (32). Sorry Jack, that was a cheap shot, that’s “Mr. Sandbag”. Congratulations to the winners! We continue Match Play this week. The schedule is set. Good luck everyone. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ’em straight!
The Portuguese Warrior – GCCGL co-commissioner
