Sept 7,2017
106 of us found Wolf Hollow on this Thursday. Wasn't difficult for yours truly, I'd just been there the day before for the weekly 2-man scramble this fine course puts on. If you want to have some fun on a Wednesday with a good friend who has a passion for this game, give this outing a try. It's a good day on a challenging course and they even feed you to play. You'll have to call in advance to set up your team, but it's very simple to do. I've been doing it for at least 15 years now and have even convinced quite a few of our ACSers to give it a try and each outing there're at least 8-10 of us in attendance.
I missed the outing last week, and as I told some of you I was in attendance at the Minnesota state fair. This is no small, one tent carnival!! It's actually the second largest, attendance-wise, state fair in the US. Second only to the Texas state fair which goes on for a longer period of time. The Minnesota state fair is on for 12 days, always ending on Labor Day. This year the total attendance was 1.997320 million people! The largest day of attendance exceeded 250 thousand folks. We went on a Thursday and the attendance then was in excess of 145 thousand people. And, they don't count sub-5 year olds in their attendance tallies. The crowds are so thick, so elbow-to-elbow that I think I came home wearing someone else's clothes.
As with any state fair, the main competition is to see who can come up with most exotic foods for the avid fair goer to stuff down their gullet. The real fetish is the deep fried something or other. My wife's favorite is the deep fried peach. Unfortunately, we couldn't locate any this year. I spotted a guy wearing a "deep fried olive" shirt and immediately began a search for the stand hawking those. Found it! I'm a sucker for green olives and this treat lived up to my expectations. There were six of them on a stick and my wife let me have about three of them - yum. Just about everything deep fried comes on a stick, for ease of eating, so I predict that in a couple of years they'll come out with a deep fried stick for those crazies that don't mind eating pine or whatever the sticks are fashioned from.
One of the main attractions this year seemed to be a very large Ferris Wheel that dominated one end of the fairgrounds. It was listed at 156 feet in height - not small by any means. We took a ride on this sucker ($5 per person) and after getting about 30 feet off the ground I suddenly recalled that in the past I've suffered from a case of acrophobia and began to search for ways to obliterate what I was seeing and feeling - didn't work. Geez, stepladders bother me, but this thing was about to be my undoing. Well, somehow I survived. Probably because we only got one full revolution before being rescued from a certain panic attack. Of course my wife kept assuring me that I'd be ok - which sort of worked but then she's not inside this skull, a skull that can manufacture all kinds of disturbing thoughts while dangling X number of feet above the ground.
Enough about my absence last week, this week we had an enjoyable time at Wolf Hollow during just an absolutely beautiful day. The course is in very good shape. The fairways are darn near perfect. The greens are good, but nowhere near as perfect as the fairways. Unfortunately, the greens are being invaded by crab grass and/or dead areas and need some tender care. Just last year the greens were great but not so this year. However, the surface of the greens is not the real issue for putting on this course. It's the topography guys. I can think of no other course we encounter that has such severely sloped greens - I'm sure there are other courses but this one stands out. The greens are what defines this course. It's actually a beautiful course, scenery-wise and not that difficult to play…until you get to the greens. You have to be below the hole to hope for any chance of an easy putt. As if that's an easy thing to do for this group. Anyway, in spite of the challenges of the course, some decent scores were recorded.
Results: The scorecard playoff hole was number two, the downhill par 5, across a creek and onto a postage stamp green with again a rather severe back-to-front slope.
Flight "A"
In First at a -9(62) was the Pierre Sans Souci, Ed de la Pena, John Balog, and John Boyd squad who somehow manufactured a bunch of miracle putts to record that lofty score.
In Second was our team (Doug Nolte) at -8(63).Now you may think that all my local knowledge at this course was the deciding factor in this score, plus I was hitting from the red tees, something not allowed in the 2-man scramble every Wednesday. In fact, I was salivating at the prospect of hitting from the reds - bad salivating! I was a bust from the reds. Back to the team, my teammates bailed us on many holes and even tho we knew we had to end up below the hole on the treacherous greens, the thought didn't help one bit because the body(ies) let us down.
In Third was the Paul Rivard team (Paul is another veteran of this course and knows it like the back of his hand) clocking in at a -6(65).
In Fourth was the Bob Checkly team also posting the 65.
In at 66's were the Larry Knopfel team, the George Eickhoff team, and the Ed Boyer team.
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Flight "B"
All teams in this flight shot -4(67)
In First was the Lou Pessoni, Larry Riedisser, Jack Panula (another Wolf Hollow veteran), and Mike Deveraux team.
In Second was the George Blaney team.
In Third was the Bert Schott team
In Fourth was the George Keil team.
Also at 67's, but out of the money, were the Sonny Javier team, the Bob Foeller team, and the John Ross team.
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Flight "C"
In First was the Del Lohmann, Dan Edmiston, Stew Pagenstecher, and Jack Eckhard (another Wolf Hollow expert) team, with -3(68).
In Second was the Ernie South team with -3(68).
In Third was the Don Wulf team with 69
In Fourth was the Darryl Rue team with 69
The Jack Reiner team also had a 69.
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Flight "D"
Three teams tied at -1(70)
In First was the Max Saunders, Gene Erard, Brian Kennedy, and Paul Villhard team.
In Second was the Joe Pfeifer team
In Third was the John Dierker team.
In Fourth, meeting their sisters at the finish for that sloppy kiss with an even par was the Pat Reed team.
Two teams finished at +1, the Dee Ridenhour team and the Dean Brandon team, while the Rich Graeff team was a +2 (and he really, really, really wanted the brace of pink balls at the end), and the Ted Schuessler team at a +3 - walking away with the pink ball arrangement for worthy effort of the day.
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Awards:
Closest to the pins for the day: #5 John O'Toole #9 Sonny Javier #14 George Mosinski #17 Jack Reiner