Sept 22, 2016 Results

This was supposed to be the first day of fall, not the middle of summer, but no, this is St. Louis afterall, the king of humidity . We did finish all 18 somehow and only managed to make sponges out of our wonderful golf shirts. Speaking of golf shirts, some folks call me nuts, appropriately so probably, for my small collection of just 40 of the "moisture wicking" specials that I happen to come across. Yesterday I noted quite a few folks sporting the Greg Norman brand, which I happen to like, so at least some of you guys are in the same nut category as me.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand, 99 of us played this course designed by one Gary Kern, the same guy who designed that devilish Wolf Hollow course that many of us frequent on Wednesdays for a 2-man scramble. Fortunately, Gary did not have the same Wolf Hollow type slopes to work with while laying out the putting greens at Bear Creek else this course would have turned out similar to the Wolf Hollow challenge. But he still managed to throw in hole #2, an 800 yard par 4 somehow disguised as 370 yards. Man, what a hole. Anyone who birdied that baby deserves all kinds of accolades.

I had the privilege of playing with a very good team, lead by the prodigious driving machine known as John Dierker. At one point in the round he was playing with a pink ball, which of course brought several derisive comments until we realized that the ball began its life at Bear Creek as a white ball and had merely changed color probably because of internal bleeding caused by John's 200mph swing speed generated by an extremely coordinated John Daleyesque back swing and perfect contact with the aforementioned ex-white ball. On the 15th tee the ball had enough of the punishment and wisely hid in the forest on the right side of the fairway. Anyway, it was fun watching John swing and it was also fun benefitting from the breeze generated by his swing, a great replacement for the non breeze of the day.

Now for the course. It was in good shape, although some fairways spots were inexplicably bare. The majority of the fairways were in very good shape with a nice cushion for us duffers. The greens were good, some a bit pock marked but generally good shape. Pin placement was awkward to say the least. Front and back placements were very frustrating/puzzling. It seems 2 paces off the fringe was the norm - which is really taking the norm to the extreme.

And then there were the tee boxes. I have a 24 volt portable drill that would've struggled on some of these surfaces. Hard doesn't begin to describe them.  A few sprigs of grass occasionally helped soften the adobe, but the sprigs often didn't grow in the right spot. And curiously enough on the 18th tee there were two shapes, one circle and one square, of what one assumed was water. The square shape was rust colored. Thinking it might possibly be a hard surface I went to scrape the surface of the square shape only to have my clubhead sink into some water of undetermined depth. I'm still not sure what was beneath that surface - I might not want to know.

Enough; here are the results to the best of anyone's knowledge. BTW the playoff hole was #4, the first par 5 on the front with a nasty creek crossing the fairway just in the landing zone for the second shot for most duffers. Miraculousy John Dierker managed to accurately measure the distance to the cart path and used it as an accelerator for an additional 40 yards closer to the green. He's both lucky and good a great combination for this game, eh?

Results:

Players: 99

Playoff hole: #4

Flight "A"

In First with a very good -9(63) was the John O'toole foursome of Larry Riedisser, Joe Cernich, and Gene Erard.Very nice guys. I guess those pin placements didn't bother you, eh?

In Second with twin 64's (-8) was the Bill Heidbreder team.

In Third with twin 64's (-8) was Bert Schott team.

In Fourth was Steve Dierker team with a 65 for the final place in the top 4 for the flight.

Also at 65 was the Dan Edmiston team. Following his brood were three teams at 66; the Doug Nolte team, the Bob Pahmeier team, and the Brian Kennedy team.

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Flight "B"

Two teams vied for first in this flight with identical 67's(-5)

In First via the SCP, was the Darryl Rue squad.

In Second was the Tom Braun team.

In Third with a 68 came the Randy Pratt team

In Fourth with a 69 was the Jim Hawkes group.

The Paul Pals team, the Bob Thibodeaux team, the Del Lohmann team, and the John Prather team all carded 70's(-2) for the day.

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Flight "C"

Four teams tied for first in this flight with -1(71).

In First was the Jack Eckhard team

In Second was the Curt Opperman team

In Third was the Calvin Britt team

In Fourth was the Paul Kinser team

A special note here; Jack Eckhard designed our wonderful software packages that create the pairings and do the scoring. Now by no means does this imply that because the software does the scoring did it help Jack win the flight. Winning is determined by the best score on the playoff hole and moving forward from there if there are ties. He won it fair and square by this elimination method. And the playoff hole is chosen by a random number generator on the computer. So, Jack is exonerated. Congrats Jack!

The George Eickhoff team was met by their sisters at the finish and got a big smackeroo for finishing at even par (72).

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Flight "D"

Two teams finished at +1(73)

In First was the Joe McDaniels team

In Second was the Rich Graeff squad

In Third was the Ernie South team with a 74

In Fourth was the Steve Comfort team (Steve in a resplendent Greg Norman shirt) finished with a 76.

The Effort of the Day (EOD) went to the Bob Meinhardt squad with a 77.

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Awards:

Closest to the pins for the day:

#3 Steve Dierker (who also won a bunch of 50-50 drawings and fourth place in a flight)#6 Gene Erard #12 Jack Reiner #16Ernie South