The golf gods were not smiling at my husband

[rapmarks Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close rapmarks]

We had our annual club championship this weekend. Saturday began damp, extremely windy, 53 degrees, and never improved. Sunday reached 60 and was also sunny.
At the end of 36 holes, my husband was tied for 1st flight champion. They started on a 380 yeard narrow par 4. His opponent, our neighbor, about 20 years younger than my husband and a real nice guy hits a killer drive. My husband hit a great drive for him (he is attending his 50th high school reunion in two weeks) right down the middle, 50 yards back of the other drive. He hits the next shot just short of the green. Neighbor hits an errant shot, flies through the trees, richochets and lands in front of the sand trap just next to the green. Hubby knocks next one three feet from the pin. (By now about 40 people are watching from the membership). Neighbor then chips it , it rolls really fast toward the hole, hits the pin and goes in for a birdie. Game over!!!

Then when we go inside we discover my husband is also tied for low net. The pro decided to pick a hole and see who gets the prize. My husband is a low handicapper,the other guy has a higher handicap. My husband had 8 pars and one double bogey on the front nine. Can you guess which hole was picked to determine the net champion? My husband set a course record for losing the most playoffs in one day.

then I had to break the news to him that our daughter who was visiting with her new baby had brake trouble in their car and had taken our van back with them to Minnesota and will return it in about three weeks.
He took everything pretty well, as he always does.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Sorry for the bad luck. The good news is that luck changes from day to day and it all evens out in the end. I'd much rather have the ability to be 2 over par on 9 holes than win a tournament with my double par game.

[shaggy Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close shaggy]

Yall need to come to Pinehurst and play golf. They have lots of packages. I promise I'll drive down and drive the golf cart!!shaggy

[The Conch Man Past Goumba President & BigFrank's Cigar Buddy! Find all posts View Profile Close The Conch Man]

Ron is getting old & he's still playing good golf, his luck is turning for the worst tho but that's OK, Jim & I will beat him this coming January. He does take things well but after our whooping his butt in January, he'll order a beer on us!!!

About 20 years younger than my husband and a real nice guy

[Elan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Elan]

Then when we go inside we discover my husband is also tied for low net. The pro decided to pick a hole and see who gets the prize. My husband is a low handicapper,the other guy has a higher handicap. My husband had 8 pars and one double bogey on the front nine. Can you guess which hole was picked to determine the net champion? My husband set a course record for losing the most playoffs in one day.

I've never heard of this method to break ties. In all of the tournaments I've played in, they just split the prize money when two individuals (or teams) are tied. Did they just draw the deciding hole number from a hat?

BTW, condolences to your husband. I bet he has gone through a zillion "if only" scenarios in his head. It's second nature for golf addicts.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

My FIL enjoyed golf greatly as long as he was physically able to play. After retiring he was able to play three or four times per week, to his great pleasure. He scored four aces - the only four of his career - after age 70.

For quite a few years he never had to buy a Thanksgiving/Christmas turkey or Easter ham; he would always win at least one turkey trot. After three or four years he got so embarrassed about it that he deliberately started tanking the tourneys.

[rapmarks Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close rapmarks]

Yes,he had a blaze of glory and played holes 3 thru 12 at one under par. then back to normal. the awards are usually plaques, and we have several boxes of them in the basement. Having been a real good golfer, he is not happy with net victories, only gross victories.
The funny thing is, two years ago, I was playing my best golf ever. i won 5 events that season and my husband and i were tied for the club net championship. The pro was a couple of plaques short, and he never gave either of us that plaque and he never gave me one for winning the ladies match play championship. And the reason the pro ran out of plaques, which really gets me mad, is he gave my husband plaques for low gross and low net inthe same event, even though we said give someone else low net. and he gave us each a plaque when we won the two man best ball and also for the scramble.
Last year I didn't play in anything because of surgery and I lost my game and my stamina. I play about 10 strokes higher now.Would you believe that my tournament handicap is based on all those scores from two years ago (which I never even got my rewards for). So when i go into a tournament, I am at a distinct disadvantage. But golf is the only game or activity in this town.

And conch Man, we are ready for a rematch - i got an eagle right before we left country Creek.

[rapmarks Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close rapmarks]

[quote=Elan;342457]I've never heard of this method to break ties. In all of the tournaments I've played in, they just split the prize money when two individuals (or teams) are tied. Did they just draw the deciding hole number from a hat?


Unfortunately with our pro, you never know how he is going to handle things. It says in our rules that ties are decided by a playoff, but he didn't do that.
Once in the three man scramble, instead of dividing the team handicap by 6 as it stated and had always been played, he divided by 3. One team had a 55, a 52 and a 38 handicapper. He took 48 off their score, which was 89 and noone could come close. Worse, he gave them 48 strokes on 18 holes for skins, so they won lots of skins getting three strokes per hole on lots of holes. Yes, I know that no other clubs give people that high of a handicap, but our pro does. We no longer put in for skins, because you can't compete with someone with three strokes on par 3's who get 3 or 4 on the hole every time.

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

The golf gods were not smiling at my husband

Oh, too bad! The golf gods can be pretty tough. My DH had one of the worst seasons of his life this year. Not really sure why, but he seemed to have just lost his swing.

Good luck next year!

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Ron is getting old & he's still playing good golf, his luck is turning for the worst tho but that's OK, Jim & I will beat him this coming January. He does take things well but after our whooping his butt in January, he'll order a beer on us!!!

You know what they say, "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser!"



Y'all wanna come up to Rotonda one of the days?

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Some of ya know the wonderful relationship I have with our pro . . . he always seems to find a tie-breaker that disfavors me or my team. If the toughest hole scenario doesn't work, he'll find another way. One time he came up with some wierd back 9 tie-breaker. He had to screw over a guy on the golf committee to stick it to me. The first thing the pro said when he came in the room was, "You guys lost the tie-breaker." My team never complained, but the pro brought us an article in Golf Digest that mentioned it.

Today we had more than a dozen putts lip out and finished out of the money by 2 strokes. But we always have a great time.

League or club golf is all about making the most people feel good, not about the money, so ties should be left alone.

OK, Ron can beat me in January, OK?

[The Conch Man Past Goumba President & BigFrank's Cigar Buddy! Find all posts View Profile Close The Conch Man]

How far is Rotonda from us Jim? What do you mean, Ron can beat you in January?

Y'all wanna come up to Rotonda one of the days?

[Elan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Elan]

[QUOTE=rapmarks;345548]

I've never heard of this method to break ties. In all of the tournaments I've played in, they just split the prize money when two individuals (or teams) are tied. Did they just draw the deciding hole number from a hat?


Unfortunately with our pro, you never know how he is going to handle things. It says in our rules that ties are decided by a playoff, but he didn't do that.
Once in the three man scramble, instead of dividing the team handicap by 6 as it stated and had always been played, he divided by 3. One team had a 55, a 52 and a 38 handicapper. He took 48 off their score, which was 89 and noone could come close. Worse, he gave them 48 strokes on 18 holes for skins, so they won lots of skins getting three strokes per hole on lots of holes. Yes, I know that no other clubs give people that high of a handicap, but our pro does. We no longer put in for skins, because you can't compete with someone with three strokes on par 3's who get 3 or 4 on the hole every time.

Yeah, most every place caps handicaps at 36, in my experience. Sounds like someone else at your club needs to become the new "tournament director".

Although I agree that tournaments are mostly for fun, it sure gets frustrating when they're run poorly. I mostly stopped playing tournament golf about 5 years ago, primarily because there are so many sand baggers in the local area where I play. When I glance at the tournament results in the local rag, the same guys are winning today that were winning then.

[rapmarks Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close rapmarks]

In an effort to stop sandbagging, our pro decided to use only our tournament scores.
The problem is two fold. For some people he used only this years's scores, for others he used 5 years worth of scores. The computer only took the best sciore of 5 scores, so some people had to play with really low handicaps. But other people were getting 20 scores and some of those scores were when they were just learning to play the game.
For example, Rich started playing 5 years ago, hates the game, plays for his wife, says it is more stressful than a 5 alarm fire. He has started getting better and has a 32 handicap. However, the computer takes 5 years of tournament scores for him and gives him a 39 tournament handicap. He started winning every tournament. People were making snide remarks. He said give me my lower handicap, no, the pro said we are doing tournament handicaps. The pro and his best bud were loudly complaining as they put up his score like he was sandbagging. Well duh, just use this year's tiournament scores.

And Conch Man and J||LB, better watch out - my game is coming around.
In Florida, our pro has the tie breaking procedure written down before the tournament.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Put Rotonda, FL in google maps and you will see it is north of Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte, and west to the Gulf. You can't miss it cuz it's a great big circle on the map, including the SAT view.

Put in 1720 Gulf Blvd, Englewood and that where we are staying. Put it on SAT view and zoom in and that is me in the hot tub.

It seems like last year it took us 45 minutes to get from there to the Forest Club, down your way. We went east to 41, south to across the bay (Punta Gorda), out to 75, and down to your neck o' the swamp.
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I know it sounds like the normal league whining, but our greens were just aerated and yesterday we had at least 10 putts get redirected by one of the little holes. I actually mean all four of our putts (scramble) on 10 different holes. I've never seen anything like it . . . it was like each cup had a goalie!

One was where my wedge wound up 3 feet from the cup, and we could not sink that putt. That was the hole that did us in, it was so disappointing.
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Handicap-wise, we are not allowed to take higher than 7 on a hole, and use the round for handicap. If it is a competetive round, where you score higher than 7, you cannot put the round in the computer.

Our tiebreaker method is not announced until our pro sees how I did.