July 21,2016

We've got to be nuts, that's all there's to it. And we started at the coolest time possible. Anyway, 89 of us ventured out in this heat to try to play the perfect game of golf - foolishly. Reports were that the temp reached somewhere in the 90's by the time we finished with the heat index in triple digits easily. When I got home the never-lie Internet told me the temp was 96 with a 112 heat index.

So, when I got home I did the only wise thing a human could do, I immediately jumped in the Sauna to cool off. %%^&*!! it was insufferably hot out there, or actually the humidity was insufferable. And the breeze was only evident it you drove your golf cart over 50mph.

Speaking of driving the golf cart, our foursome was given the enviable task of starting at the opposite end of the course, hole #11 to be exact, and to top that off we were relegated to tee off second, thus you guys had to wait until we turned in our scorecard before all results could be tallied. Good thing there was a filling station half way to the hole so we could fill up and get new batteries for our Garmin so we could continue on our hunt for the hole which we naturally assumed was still in Missouri. Anyone who plays this course knows it's a long way to those midway holes. I think the guys who teed off on #1 probably played 2-3 holes before we even arrived at our tee box. Not a complaint (oh yeah), just an astute observation.

Case in point; one of our guys had one of those fancy GPS wrist gadgets that lets us know how far it is to the hole. On the first hole he came up with some out-of-whack distance only to realize that it was for a hole on the "Pheasant Run" golf course, a nine hole par 3 course several miles back along highway K - that's how far we were from the Links clubhouse!

But, we did play and we did finish - somehow.

The course was in excellent shape, the greens were great, altho a bit pock marked, and the fairways were quite nice, not having been cut down to the dirt. The greens are quite benign, with no subtle breaks, altho our foursome could never quite sink those putts that we should've. And most fortunately we did not have cart path only which most assuredly would've caused some heart issues out there.

Results: playoff hole was #12

Flight "A"

In First mastering the course with a wonderful -10(62) was the Jack Eckhard, Jon Meyer, Don Giarraffa, and Joe Pfeifer foursome. This comes as no surprise since Jack just confided in me that he and Darryl Rue played the course recently and Jack darn near broke 80!! He knows this course. Wonderful job guys.

In Second was the Mike Sommerville squad at 63.

in Third was the Lou Pessoni group at 64.

The final group in the A flight was the Bob Braun foursome.

Flight "B"

Four teams shot -6(66) but the top three, via the SCP, in First was the the Tom Braun team.

In Second was the Stew Pagenstecher team.

in Third was the Sonny Javier foursome.

Also with a 66, but out of the money (the money being the top 3 places) was the Joe Cernich team.

.

Four teams squeaked in with a tidy 67. The Dan Edmiston team, the Howard Freiner team, the Mark Bryant team, and the Rich Graeff team.

Flight "C"

Three teams vied for the lead in this flight with identical 68's, but coming out on top via the computer selected SCP hole, in First was the Larry Edwards team.

in Second was the Jim Mead team.

In Third was the Art Soble team.

Finishing out the flight with 69's were the Bob Edwards team and the John Balog team.

Fight "D"

Three teams tied at the top of this flight with the -2(70) score,in First was was the Dan Snowden team.

In Second was Brian Kennedy team.

In Third was the Mark Gordon team.

The Jim Dwyer team and the Russ Wall team finished at -1(71), while the Lew Rosenbaum team took home the Worthy Effort of the Day award with an even par 72 and a nice sisterly smooch at the 19th hole

This is one of the few times in memory that each team finished even par or better. Great job guys considering the lousy climate we had to endure for the day.

Awards;

Closest to the pins for the day: #3 John Strebeck # 7 Livingston Sykes #11 Doug Torrie #13 Ed Boyer #17 Ron Muse