Oct 12, 2017 Results
The final count for yesterday's outing at Far Oaks Golf Course was 129. And you could certainly hear 129 sighs of relief when the course announced that it would not be cart path only for the day, hallelujah!!! Can you imagine how slow play would've been had we been under the cart path only rule? Play was slow enough without that stipulation.
Two things come to mind about pace of play in our situation; first, we probably play a tad faster because we all hit from the same tee box, but secondly, and most importantly, we nullify this advantage because in many instances the big bombers have to wait longer to hit because of the possibility of hitting into folks on the green of a short par 4, eg. #s 11 and12 come to mind immediately. Perhaps we should consider playing the short par 4's with the bombers hitting from their normal tees and us older farts hitting from the advanced (age) tee. And again, this would be only the last outing of the season with the "hit from any tee box" format.
Far Oaks has been in better shape. The fairways were ok, not great but ok. The greens were ok, not great but ok. Some of the greens showed signs of some kind of blight in certain spots and the fairways offered some of the same issues. And speaking of the greens, I don't think we've ever seen holes cut as imperfectly as those we saw yesterday. Either they were old holes, or the guys cutting the holes didn't care about manicuring after the cut. Many of them emulated hair growing into the hole, giving the appearance of a smaller hole, especially when you're 15+ feet away and trying to putt for birdie (as we did almost a thousand times). Now if the "hair" was growing on the outside of the hole we could've canned many, many more putts from any distance!
But the scenic course is always fun to play. Especially since we get a glimpse of how the other half lives. We were treated to some wildlife along the way, such as 7 wild turkeys feasting on something alongside hole #14 and two deer ambling up the fairway on #12. But how about those dwellings? Some of those houses must be home to many families. If they're just one family houses I don't know how they ever get together for family meetings or just simple meals. It's gotta be a day trip from one end to the other in some of those structures. And it seems they've got a competition going on as to who can build the biggest, tallest most outlandish house. Tell you what I for one wouldn't want to roof some of those babies. The pitch angles on some of those houses is unbelievable. They must do it by helicopter, or at least drone. That's it, the latest craze - drone roofing.
Fortunately, the weather held out and actually it was a decent day to play. No sweat involved in yesterdays match that's for sure. This year we've been pretty blessed weather-wise and the only glitch being the earlier Whitmoor rainout, which we're making up for next week. Let's hope there's not too much frost on the old pumpkin by next Tuesday.
Oh yeah, this might be a good place to put in a few words about Randy Pratt. What he does for this group is simply amazing and we really owe him a debt of gratitude. During the off season he contacts all the courses we recommend, sets up the dates for our outings, negotiates for the price we pay and for the luncheon that most courses provide. And then he does all the pairings and mailings (something I used to do but have wisely passed on), prints out all the sign-in sheets, collects all the monies at each outing and carefully pays the courses their due before we head out onto our first tees. At the end of each outing he enters each score in the organization's laptop and pushes a few buttons to determine the flight winners, etc. Records that info on sheets that he's prepared and gives them to the MC (normally Ron Muse) for announcing the results. Then when he gets home he enters each person's prediction for the next three outings in our data base.
And then when he sends out the pairings, that's when the fun(?) begins. With a group this size invariably there are changes in the pairings before the actual outing. But amazingly it's only after the pairings are sent out that these changes have to be made. When the weather threatens, that's when the changes come in hot and heavy and his job is made even more interesting (poor choice of words, sorry). Anyway, what he does is almost a full-time job, believe me. We are very, very fortunate that someone wanted to take on this task. Kudos to you Randy.
Results :The playoff hole was #5, the slightly downhill par 4 with the green carved out of the side of a slope. Probably the only hole on the course without 23 sand traps in front of the green. On in regulation and two putt for our par - damn in grown hair!!
Flight "A"
In First was the threesome of Don Giarraffa, Bruce Shepherd, and Ward Klocke. Don said he couldn't miss a putt (lotta hair around those holes I guess) and the rest of his team just followed his lead to their ---15(57) score. On a side note, some of us bowl afterwards and yesterday my team was fortunate enough to be paired up against Don and his team. Don rolled an amazing 731 series which for 3 games means a wonderful 243 per game average. And yes, he's fully capable of that since he's got a handful of perfect 300 games to his credit. Somehow, perhaps with mirrors or whatever we could muster, we managed to take his team for two games and total pins in spite of his Herculean effort. Not to be outdone, Bruce Shepherd, on the two lanes next to us, squeaked out a tidy 759 series (253 average). So, these two guys had a wonderful "All Sports Day". It's just a good thing they didn't invest in the 50-50 drawings else they'd have probably won several times.
The rest of the teams in A Flight are :
Paul Rivard 58(-14) John Prather 58(-14) John Shetterly 59(-13) Tom Braun 60(-12) Joe Goines 61(-11) Ted Schuessler 61(-11) Steve Comfort 61(-11)
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Flight "B"
In First was the John Boyd, Randy Pratt, Russ Wall, and Dan Snowden team took honors in this flight with a 62(-10). Had to figure this team would do ok, Randy and John have played golf together for perhaps 50 years and seemed to be joined at the hip when it comes to this game. They've managed to tear apart the Wolf Hollow scramble on most occasions.
Others in this flight :
Steve Haase 63(-9) Larry (in the bucks again) Willman 63(-9) John Dierker 63(-9) Bob Foeller 63(-9) Art Soble 63(-9) Gary Dyhouse 64(-8) John O'Toole 65(-7)
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Flight "C"
In First was the Bob Meinhardt, Mark Bryant, Jon Meyer, and Bob Edwards team nosed out two other teams with a very nice 65(-7).
Others in the flight :
Doug Nolte 65(-7) %^&*! In grown hair Pat Reed 65(-7) Jim Mead 66(-6) Pete Grouzos 66(-6) Ron Smith 66(-6) Jerry White 67(-5) Gene Erard 68(-4)
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Flight "D"
In First at a 68(-4) was the Curt Opperman, Steve Smith, Mike Deveraux, and Bob Hickey group.
Others in the flight :
Max Saunders 69(-3) Mike Sommerville 70(-2) Del Lohmann 70(-2) George Blaney 71(-1) Dave Hitt 71(-1) Larry Knopfel 72(-0) and nice sister kisses Lewis Rosenbaum 73(+1) Dan Fergus 75(+3) and no pink balls
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Awards:
Closest to the pins for the day (and a set of pink balls for each of these lucky guys):
#2 Jerry White #6 John Dierker #8 Bob Meinhardt #13 Paul Rivard #16 Bruce Shepherd (to go along with his low score for the day and his big bowling day)
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