Tuesday Men - Come on Down!

Start early and don't let an occasional shower stop you today (thunder and lightning: take cover).  The hope is that everyone will finish up their missed rounds and today's event four gets into the books without mishap (read rain).  Today is also the second week of the Team Handicapped Tournament, a four week game that makes a winner out of the team with the four week, 36 hole, low net team score.

Next week: Event 5.  Third week of the Team Handicapped Tournament.  Week 1 of the two week, four game May Challenge.

Bits and Pieces

-Tuesday League make-up:  Over 90% of players have finished up event #2; 60% event #3.  Event #4 tomorrow.  Going to get the league up to date, hopefully, and report on what's what and who's where in the standings.  Remember: event #3 was the first week of the four week team handicapped tournament.  Week two tomorrow.

-Our half inch of rain in the middle of Saturday night: keeping things green.

-Neat watching the end of the PGA yesterday afternoon with Lucas Glover taking the lead into the clubhouse and then predicting that his Clemson teammate of several years back, Jonathan Byrd, would tie him with a birdie at the final hole to force a playoff - which he did, and then the one hole playoff with Glover winning with a par after Byrd got himself in trouble with a tee shot into a fairway bunker.  Good stuff.

-Nine holes with Karry Stoll, Mike Arvin, JD Simmons and Dave Wininger to close yesterday.  A 6-6-6 game with Dave and me taking on Short Jeffers and Doug Denson to close Saturday; Short and Doug took the scramble with some just-off-the-green magic at #3 and #5; Dave and I stormed back to take the alternate shot and the best ball. More good stuff.

-Heading to the golf course early - going to mow the greens - Eric is off with Colleen with some personal stuff.  Play a Tuesday make up with Tom Walker at 10.  Looking for a hole-in-one at #7.

-Tip for the day: Get out there and whack that little white ball around and have fun doing it.

Wininger, Souerdike and Wininger Win On Fourth Extra Hole

Lee Wininger sinks the birdie putt on the fourth extra hole to win the Saturday Morning Scramble at Lakeview.  Teammates Wayne Souerdike and Dave Wininger watch.          Photo by Mike Bird.

It took four extra holes in the rain before the Saturday Morning Scramble at Lakeview was decided earlier today.  The team of Dave Wininger, Wayne Souerdike and Lee Wininger were tied at five under with the team of Mike Bird, Stan Graber and Joe Allen after nine holes.  After a bird at #1, the first extra hole, and pars at two and three, Lee Wininger's four foot putt for birdie at #4 brought the game to a close.  Stan Graber's chip from just off the green lipped out in his team's attempt at a birdie of their own to extend the match.  The winning team made five straight birds, from holes two through six, to post a score of 30 in regulation.  Wayne Souerdike chipped in at #3 to keep the birdie train rolling.  The Bird, Graber and Allen team found birds at holes one, three, six, seven and eight but were unsuccessful in making birdies at two and four (usually routine birdie holes) to post their score of 30.  Stan Graber also had a chip in, his at hole #8.  Two other teams participated in the scramble: Travis Brett, Greg Potts and Paul Hart finished with a round of 32 while Doug Denson, Tracy Rayhill and Curt Johnson fired a 33.

Bits and Pieces

-Saturday Golf Tip from linkslikfegolf.com:  Weight shift and the dancing feet drill.  Good one, especially if you have trouble getting that weight going in the right direction - that would be the same way the ball is going.

-Beautiful day yesterday and the golfing was looking a little more normal.  Two of our college guys were out there: DJ Harder with his girl friend and Mark Potts with dad, Greg, Aaron O'Connor and Noah Callahan.  Just happened to be in the neighborhood when Mark eagled #6 and birdied #7.  See he's up to his old tricks.  Expect DJ is as well.  DJ, btw, has added about seven inches to his height; still working on that weight - needs a large chocolate shake every day for starters, or maybe pancakes and steak and eggs with the shake mid-morning.

-Course is in super conditions considering all the rain we've had.  Still a few soggy places but for the most part the grounds are very playable.  We might even get a roll on those drives this morning.

-Heading out there right now.

P.S.  The bugs/nits are back.  Bring your vanilla.

Scramble in ...

...just under two hours.  Just looked at the radar - it will not rain on us.  You all think that and just watch how that big green blob moves to our south.  Sorry, neighbors to our south.

Saturday Scramble Start Time

9am.

Bits and Pieces

-Wanna make a hole-in-one?  Play more golf.  Brent Kelley at about.com talks about the odds of making an ace and reports a variety of 'guesses' at exactly what those odds are.  One expert:

The odds Scheid came up with were lower than any others cited above: 5,000 to 1 for a "low-handicapper," 12,000 to 1 for an "average player." If you are a low-handicapper and play 1,000 rounds in your life, according to Scheid, you have a 20-percent chance of recording an ace. If you play 5,000 rounds, your odds are 1:1.

So, let me see here.  If I got serious about golf when I turned 50, what would be my chances of getting an ace or two?  Or, how long would it take me to play 5000 rounds - and that assumes that I'm a low handicapper.  Off the top of my head, don't think I have enough years left to play that many rounds.  But, hey, doesn't matter cause I've already got my share of aces (2) though am looking for that third one any day now.  Rounds calculation: Say three a week for thirty weeks in a year or about a hundred; that would be a thousand in ten years and two thousand in twenty.  Think that figure is very generous even with my being at a golf course near every day for seven or eight months of the year.  Bottom line:  If you want a handful of aces, get out there and play.

-Speaking about stellar moments of golf:  Not so stellar play these last several days at Lakeview.  Both Tuesday and Thursday league players have come in with scorecards turned face down not really wanting to reveal the amount of frustration and embarrassment they experienced in their rounds (I include myself in this group after last Wednesday's make up of both a Thursday and a Tuesday league event).  High scores have been the norm.  It's like we all had our golf smarts washed away with the plentiful and constant rains of the last twelve days.  Bound to get better, both the weather and the golfing.

-Breakfast at the Corner Cafe this morning with Diane and #1 son Marty and Jim Bateman.  Catching up with Jim who has avoided all the golfing woe by doing other things.  Does say that he is going to get back out there one of these days.  The Friday church crowd came in while we were there - Shirley Jeffers, John Walker, Allen Voegerl, Tom Walker (and several others).  Used to see them up at the Cabin when that place was still in operation.

-Which reminds me:  Hope George Templin is feeling a whole bunch better.  He should be home and recuperating after bypass surgery last week.  Expect he would quickly trade in a day or two at the golf course in any kind of weather just to be out and about.

-Tip for the day: Get out in the sun and listen to the birds' singing.