August 2, 2012 Update
Where do I begin? It all started on hole #1 where Carrier couldn’t find his 2nd shot. As he is desperately looking for his ball near the left side of the fairway about 40 yards from the green, a search party ensues with everyone but Cletus looking for Carrier’s ball. This included the foursome in front (Cupcake, Commish, JJ and The Politician) who was waiting for the fairway to clear on hole #2 and had nothing better to do. A 500 foot radius was measured and combed by 7 capable golfers who are accustomed to searching for errant shots. The only thing missing in this search party was a ball sniffing canine. He was there but he was busy lining up his birdie attempt…..in case you were wondering what Cletus was doing. (I jest Cletus! You know you’re my favorite!). I have to say that, he’s lending me his golf clubs hard case for an upcoming golf trip of mine. Anyway, no golf ball was found. Joe takes a drop and moves on. However, there was a very good reason why Joe’s ball was not found, it was in Cletus’ pocket! It gets better, who was Joe playing against? Cletus! It gets better. Where was Joe’s ball picked up? On the fairway! I can’t make this stuff up folks. Here is the explanation from the man himself, Cletus.
I’m walking up and can’t believe my drive is approx. 30-35 yards off the green….I see Jason, George, Eiser and Bedell swinging their clubs…some in the direction of my ball and I’m walking up the hill…I see a ball coming directly from the tee box…or I thought….I start thinking that maybe those guys are messing with me and my drive….the 2nd ball lands about 10 feet from mine….again I thought George or Jason were screwing with me….so I picked up the ball…..I chip onto the green. Carrier comes up looking for his ball around the 2nd tee box….Rayburn is helping him….Jason and George are looking around the tree….I even saw Jason looking up into the tree for it!
Cletus: What are you hitting?
Carrier: a Titleist
Cletus: what number?
Carrier: 2
Cletus to Rayburn: I picked up a GC Titleist.
Rayburn to Cletus: that’s not his…he hit over there.
Cletus: okay.
Carrier: drops a ball and chips to the other side of the green laying 4.
Cletus: sinks his putt for a birdie.
Carrier: 2 putts for a 6.
Cletus to Carrier on the way to the #2 tee: Joe is this your ball…..if only you could have seen the look on Carrier’s face….you would have thought I killed somebody….I think Joe wanted to kill Cletus!
Carrier: Yes, and I’m not taking the drop stroke!! Put me down for a 5!
Cletus: It wasn’t intentional….no problem.
What have we learned from this? First, it seems that Carrier has conquered his anger issues. The “old Joe” would have found a unique and uncomfortable location to stick Cletus’ pitching wedge. Second, how crazy is this league when a GCCGL veteran inexplicitly does the unthinkable and picks up an opponent’s ball, in the fairway just because he thought he was being messed with by his fellow members. Finally, if you think about it, this was all Syndrome’s fault. How funny is it that he had the audacity to tell Cletus that it wasn’t Joe’s ball? This is what happens when you put the human species in unnatural surroundings. You can’t expect to bring an arboreal primate such as the ape into your home and not be knee deep cleaning ape “business” from your walls when you come home from the office any more than you can expect Syndrome to react normally when deprived of cold alcoholic malt beverages for a prolonged period of time. It’s not natural.
It has been a while since we’ve had a spirited discussion about the Cletus handicap system. Sorry Clete, you’re getting a lot of ink this week but something tells me you LOVE IT! So we decided to hand over the numbers to GCCGL analytical department and here are the results. After crunching the numbers and substituting the official USGA HC calculation, Cletus’ HC does not change. You were right Cupcake! It’s a 10 either way. His index actually is higher via USGA and closer to 11. However, after taking out higher non-league scores, it knocks him down to a very low 9 (9.6 index). We are on to your shenanigans Cletus! With all this said, his handicap dropped to a 9 after last night’s round! In reality, his HC has dropped 3 strokes this season from a season beginning of 12 to a 9. OK, it took all season, but it did drop. I have a feeling even armed with all this irrefutable data, the handicap debates will continue on. Speaking for the GCCGL commissioner’s office, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
If you think about it, the handicap system, in of itself, is not much different from socialism. Just play along for a moment. The playing field is evened by taking strokes (money) away from the skilled players (the rich) and giving it to the lowly (C/D) players (the poor). This outrages the (A/B) players (the rich) because they’ve worked hard (at the practice range) all their lives and shouldn’t be penalized for being successful (low handicappers). The (C/D) players on the other hand love the system since they don’t have to work (practice) to improve their game (increase their wealth). They are perfectly content with accepting strokes from the skilled players (redistribution of wealth). I don’t see a difference, do you?
So much more to get to…..Cupcake and I had to endure JJ and the Politcian arguing like an old married couple about giving putts when neither of them were giving anything. Staying within my foursome, I got a bit lucky after nearly hitting Bedell with my 2nd shot on #3 and hitting the chain link fence behind the green and having it bounce back just off the fringe. On that same hole, the Politician buckles under the presence of the beer girl and duffs his 2nd shot about 3 inches. Admittedly I have to work on my golf etiquette. On hole #7, where the Politican drove the green AND we almost get decapitated by Bachmann’s drive which flew over our heads while we were putting, I walked all over Cupcake’s line while attempting to mark JJ’s ball which I thought was mine! To make matters worse, as Bedell is addressing his tap in birdie attempt, I unexplainably decided it was a good time to make a sprint for the flag to pick it up. I knew it was wrong but I did it anyway. It may have been an unconscious response to the previous hole when I had marked my putt and just began to un-crouch and address my ball when Bedell, pissed about missing a short putt, swipes at his ball on the green and nails it right in my direction and hit my ball that was perfectly aligned with the cup! I wound up missing the putt and losing the hole. I’m telling you, it was the full moon. Donnie Golf Game decided to show up after 15 weeks into the season and play some decent golf. Donnie boy, not sure if you know this but, you’re a day late and a dollar short my friend. Your team has been out of the race since week 4. But I think we are all happy to see someone other than Cletus win the low net. Berkley invented a new hilarious game call Cletus’ Jewels. It’s where you sneak up on an unsuspecting hillbilly and fling a golf ball at his…….”personal area”. This happened a couple of times. The second time it happened, Cletus picks up the ball while Nate is sprinting away wisely adopting the serpentine escape method and whips it in Nate’s direction as hard as he could. In typical Cletus fashion, he pulled it left and misses but hit his golf club! The ball goes flying about 50 yards down the valley. Too funny! Finally, below is a picture of Carrier’s ball in hole#2. What are the chances of this happening? Again, it had to be the moon.
Sorry for the length of this week’s blog, like I said it was a freaky week. So I’m going to quickly wrap this up. It was one of the closes match play weeks we’ve ever had. All three team matches finished with a score of (20.5 – 19.5). NQ8! Squeaked by first place AMDB. They were led by George Almeida who managed 6.5 points. Meanwhile the Big Tebowski’s eked by last place Menace to Sobriety. They were led by Don Moore who grabbed 7.5 points. Balls of Fury narrowly defeated UMass Debate Team. They were led by Allen Bloomhuff who got away with 6 points. This is a correction from Nill’s spreadsheet. Bedell actually won (6.5 – 3.5). The updated spreadsheet will be sent out and posted on the GCCGL website later.
The low net winners were (A/B) McNeil, Lane and Cook with a low net of 31 and (C/D) Don Moore with a low net of 29. There were a lot of HC changes this week so make sure you check yours. We move to the back nine of the Pioneer for the final two weeks of the season. Please be on time as we are losing precious daylight every day. Hope to see you on the golf course and as always, hit ‘em straight!
George Almeida – GCCGL Co-Commissioner
