July 1, 2013
We fielded 109 golfers for our outing at one of the finer layouts in the St. Louis metro area. Fortunately for us, the 4th of July fell on a Thursday this year so Tapawingo was gracious enough to let us play on Monday. For those of you not aware of the reason we don't play this course more often (basically ever), they host a Thursday morning women's league that would interfere with our play. We wouldn't want to be held up by a bunch of women now would we? Actually, they may play faster than we do, who knows. Anyway, it worked out ok for us and who knows, if we want we could play it once a season on an off day such as a Monday or even a Tuesday the way I understand it. From some of the comments I heard our folks would not mind playing here again. But then again I heard comments on the opposite side of the spectrum too.
The way our foursome started out I thought the low score would be really low, I mean really low. The holes were not long, the fairways were very plush, and the greens were not tricky. This course was set up to shoot some very good scores. Yeah well, so much for that impression! Looking back on it, we played extremely well. We only missed one green in regulation, a par 3 and were in very, very reasonable birdie distance on 17 holes, 17 holes!!!! I think our longest birdie putt was maybe 20 feet. But on this fair day, 4 adult golfers could only manage 2 %^&*%%$#@!!! birdies out of 17 attempts. That's downright pathetic, and especially comedic. How can 4 guys miss that many chances??? And we didn't even have any lipouts, these were all genuinely stupid run-it-right-by-the-hole or leave it short misses. It was disgusting gentlemen. Out of fairness to my partners I'm not going to mention any names because I don't want to stigmatize them, but you can put my name in your lack-of-putting-prowess notes and when I'm on your team just turn your back when I putt because you'll not want to use my useless line to the hole!
Anyway, as I said, this course was in beautiful shape tee to green. Even the hotels that lined some of the fairways were beautiful. And again, we may have to look into playing this course on a non-Thursday next season.
Results:
Flight "A"
Oh man, all alone in First was the Livingston Sykes, Wayne Warneke, Alan Schaeffer, and Al Rosenberg squad who steamrolled the course in a blistering -9. I guess Mr. Sykes is rounding into midseason shape and fine tuning his game on a finely tuned course. Congrats guys on a round well-played. Obviously you had no issues with putting.
In Second and winning in a scorecard playoff (hole #9 on one of these courses) was the John Dierker, Doug Torrie and Jim Mead team with a -8 (64). They nosed out the Paul Pals, Brian Cox, Bill Clark and Vince Koehr team via the playoff. Also shooting the 64, but not falling in the first 3 places was the Mark Bryant team.
The John Boyd and Frank Vien teams shot a -7 (65), while the Dennis Rumley squad managed a -6 (66).
Flight "B"
Three teams tied at a -5 (67), but with the scorecard playoff the Bob Gay, Bert Schott, Bob Dixon and Phil Helm team came out on top nosing out the Ron Smith, Stewart Pagenstecher, Jerry Mullen, and Charlie Riedisser team and the Bob Edwards, Harold Howard, John Aubuchon, and Rich Graeff team.
All shooting 68's were the Tom Murphy, Charley Wilson, Dennis Shannon, and Jack Eckhard teams.
Flight "C"
Three teams managed 69's and with the playoff hole being the deciding factor the Roger Danielson, Dan Snowden, Jeff Delaplain, and Ed Bronczyk team beat out the Lou Pessoni, Dennis Terhaar, Paul Villhard, and Don Wulf team, and the Randy Pratt, Bob Eddy, Jim Hawkes and Tom Gill team.
Shooting -2 (70's) were the Joe Cernich team, the Doug Nolte (puttless wonders) team, and the John O'Toole team.
Flight "D"
Three teams shot -1 (71) and because of the playoff hole the Joe Goines, Steve Wallach, Earl Phillips, and Darryl Rue team demolished the Mark Gordon, Pat Reed, Lowell Barnes, and Russ Wall team who in turn outpaced the Ted Isringhaus, Larry Amen, Dan Fergus and Gene Erard team.
Shooting 72's and meeting their sisters after the outing were the Joe McDaniels team and the Don Giarraffa team. At 73 was the Bob Checkley team and with a 74 was the Bob Thibodeaux team. Holding down the anchor position was the Lee Hanson squad.
Awards:
Closest to the pins for the day: Sincerest apologies here guys. I had the sheet firmly in my hand when I got back to my car only to find when I got home that the sheet was not there. It's either still in the parking lot at the course or as litter somewhere along the road on the way back home since I had some windows open for a spell. It should make for some puzzling reading by some litter picker upper. I'm sure from now on Randy will staple it to my chest when I leave.
So, whoever got rewarded for closest to the pins for the day, your secret is safe with me.
Oh, just got word that Wayne Warneke garnered two of these, Bill Clark got one, Bob Pahmeier got one, and an anonymous player got the 5th one. As to who got the CTP on which hole, I'll let you fill that in.
Skins: Nary a single one.