Apparently, though, the Easton grounds crew was anticipating Colorado-like flooding, and consequently proceeded to place the pins on the highest ground of each hole, some barely on the green. With the greens remarkably dried out, this resulted in a day of treacherous putting. But as all the golf world knows, there is no challenge too great for the vaunted S.I.G.L., and so we brought mighty Easton to its knees. ...Well, not really. Actually, many a quota point was squandered away by the three putt, and one 19th hole lamentation was heard of a birdie opportunity turned into a double bogey by the never-welcome four putt. The way to avoid three-putting was to sink the first one, which was done 20 times by 12 different golfers.
Whether it was the greens or not, collectively, we did not play well, with only six players exceeding quota and four more at even, and only two teams in the plus column. Even sending out a Gurney Group scouting party in the morning didn't help; the sum total of their recon briefing: There's a lot of tough pins out there.
However, as in years past, the perennial tourney all stars rose to the top and were handsomely rewarded for their efforts. Frank LaRosa again was our featured golfer of the day when the 69 year-old shot one stroke higher than his age on the back of five birdies for an unbeatable 42 points and a boat-load of dough ($450). Last year, Frank had 46 points in the tourney, so that is an amazing combined 88 points in 36 holes when the money is on the line. And again, Jim Lyons saved his best round of the year for the year-end, and came in with 34 points with four birds, also putting him in the upper-income bracket ($441). And rookie Dave Weber, who played well all year but modestly held back from winning much money, was really cooking with (Mutual) gas as he carded 29 points, easily outdistancing any other B player and making up for lost time in the cash department ($433).
Dana Willard played well and was rewarded with $246.50. As usual, Tommy James came to play, and registered an impressive 33 points to captain the winning team of James, Dave Weber, Paul Begley, and Dana Willard. T.J. needed a little pocket money for a golf trip to Maine, so he turned it on and headed north with an extra 193 clams (dollars) in his wallet. (Bob Frick, going on the same trip, turned it on for an extra $9. "Hey T, ya got a couple of bucks I can borrow?" Actually, Bob played very well but didn't have the right teammates.) Greg Willard and Scott played well and came in at +1, which was best in class in the C and D division.
We gave out a total of $2,830 in cash prizes and $300 in raffle prizes. The cash prizes consisted of $1,950 in team and individual payouts, and there was a total of $880 in the birdie pools: $180 in the pay-all pool and $700 in the skins pool. There were 20 pay-alls worth $9 each, and five skins birdies that paid $140 each, and were won by Frank LaRosa (2), Jim Lyons (2), and Dave Weber (1). Of 39 golfers who played, 26 won some cash or a raffle prize, with 10 players winning $100 or more. And thanks go out to Frank for providing three nice golf shirts as prizes. And for the first time ever, thanks in some part to the cancellation of Week 20, we were able to pay all tourney costs; greens fee, cart, lunch, and dinner. What a country!
Well, another year is now in the books, and we hope everyone had fun. As always a hearty round of applause to co-captain and good friend Bino Bino Carrabino who superbly handled the website and a lot of the number crunching, in addition to being the king of the photo caption. (Go back to previous years on the website; they're still funny as hell.)
We hope all are willing and able to do it all again in '14.
See you next Tuesday,... I mean April.
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