June 14, 2018 Results
An amazing 121 of us braved the anti-winter swelter and teed it up at this oft-noisy course in the Missouri River lowlands. We actually had an occasional breeze to "cool" us off when not speeding along in our AC created carts. In actuality it really wasn't too bad out there - we all survived.
Even the airport sort of cooperated and the noise level was less than it has been at times. Not that many jet aircraft decided to leave/arrive which made for liveable conditions while trying to line up a crucial (they're all crucial - right?) putt or hit a good drive/fairway shot.
I noticed an interesting aviation fact today. We'd played perhaps 9 or 10 holes when one of the aircraft, a twin prop job if I recall, took off in the opposite direction that all the previous aircraft had accomplished. Because of my Air Force background in aircraft control (actually "weapons control") this could only mean one thing; the wind had changed direction!! It must've been a subtle change because up until then we'd had what could only be called a slight breeze. Anyway, the change in breeze helped us because we'd come upon one of the dreaded holes on this course, #9, which is fairly long and has an elevated green and in this case a dastardly pin placement. The breeze, or light zephyr, had switched to our stern and actually helped us hit the $%^*&#ing ball a bit longer. Thanks breeze!
One more observation about this course. As we obviously know, it sits very close to the aforementioned airport which can accommodate jet aircraft of almost any size. Well, several years ago I was playing here with some friends and we glanced over at the parked aircraft area and lo and behold spotted a jet fighter. I'm not sure of the nomenclature since my time as an aircraft controller (weapons controller mind you) included only such advanced jets at the F-102, F-104, F-106, and the extremely versatile F-4. Well, this fighter was probably of the F-14/15/16 genre and I'll leave it at that. What was really interesting was the lack of marking anywhere on its fuselage! It was gray and that was it, no identifying marks. Speculation by one of my friends in the intelligence business was that this possibly could've been associated with "The Company" - who knows. Or, possibly, it could've been a special bird flying a check-out mission for some new fangled operating system of some sort.
Anyway, enough about what was next door to our venue, now onto the venue. The grounds crew can be proud of the job they've done. I thought the course to be in great shape - the fairways were good, the greens were great and the tee boxes were something to be seen - wonderful!!! The greens were interesting. In the past they've been known to be very, very quick and sneakily slopey, but today they played almost normal and in fact the hole luckily got in the way of several of our long putts.
Results: The playoff hole was #8, that relatively short par 3 with a green exhibiting about 28 feet of elevation change and of course the pin was up front at the bottom of the elevation change!
Flight "A"
In First,Running away with the low score of the day (-10, 62) was the Mark Gordon, Ron Muse, John Boyd, and Dave Page team. They had the long and accurate game down to a science.
In Second was the Doug Nolte, Jerry White, Dan Winter, and Tom Prinzi team at 64(-8)
In Third was the Lou Pessoni, Randy Pratt, Kerry Rockwell, and Mike Deveraux team at the 64 score
In Fourth was the Paul Rivard, Kevin Walsh, Erle Craig, and Dan Snowden team.
The John Ross team shot 65(-7) while the Larry Riedisser, John Dierker, Ted Schuessler, and Ed Boyer teams all had 66's.
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Flight "B"
The first 4 places in this flight had -5(67)
In First was the George Keil, Steve Smith, Dale Crittenden, and John Strebeck team
In Second was the Dee Ridenhour, Steve Dierker, Ron Smith, and Bob Gay team
In Third was the Bert Schott, Joe Cernich, Ralph Buettner, and Ken Knarr team
In Fourth was the Max Saunders, Norbert Loebs, Calvin Britt, and John O'Toole team.
Also with 67's came the Bob Thibodeaux, and Don Schneider teams. With 68's were the Larry Knopfel team, the Ed de la Pena team, and the Sonny Javier team. The Tom Benedum, Dennis Terhaar, and Bob Foeller teams all shot 69's.
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Flight "C"
Five teams shot -2(70)
In First was the Bob Hickey, Gary Dyhouse, Don Bratcher, and Ernie Aehle team
In Second was the Tom Wulf, Jack Panula, Joe McDaniels, and Howard Freiner team
In Third was the Rich Graeff, Charley Wilson, Rick Hartmann and Larry Willman team
In Fourth was the Tim McCullen, Harvey Ruth, Paul Villhard, and David Erker team.
The Bob Pankey team also shot the -2(70) score but finished out of the money.
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Flight "D"
Two teams fought it out for tops in this flight (-1,71)
In First was the Darryl Rue, Don Wulf, David Hall, and Don Giarraffa team.
In Second was the Tom Fichter, Ron Martens, Curt Opperman, and Karson Kosowski team.
In Third at an even (sister kissin') par 72 was the Bob Checkly, Pete Grouzos, Jon Meyer, and Bob Eubank team
In Fourth was the Harold Lindahl, Bill Clark, and Jim Mead team came in at a +1(73).
Tied with the Lindahl team at 73 but losing in the playoff just so they could take home the lovely set of pink balls and $2 each was the Pierre Sans Souci team. This marks the absolute first time we've had a tie for the high score of the day - congrats to both teams.
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Closest to the pins for the day: #5 Jim Hawkes #8 George Keil #13 Rick Hastings #17 Sonny Javier (who else?????)