Bob Edelblut
Last year you may recall that Special Events Director David Cohen thanked the field profusely for completing the tournament in a then record time. You should have been present when he applauded this year’s field. Yes, a new club record has been established—one month start to finish. He must have said “Thank You” a million times!
Thirty-eight eager participants showed up for the first day of competition on June 8. They were bunched into five flights and, as in years past, the tee selections you chose and the handicap you carry determined your flight. Each flight had two brackets (Winners and Consolation). The consolation bracket, comprised of first round losers, allowed all the opportunity to continue playing and hopefully win a prize. This year all flight winners made the playoffs. You might find this factoid interesting, I certainly did—the lowest handicap index of all who played was 5.6 and the highest was 33.5. Congratulations to all the players.
To win your Flight you needed to win three consecutive matches. Believe me it’s not that easy to accomplish. Paul Zapf was the winner in Flight 1; Brian Gallup won Flight 2; Bill Hammond was the winner in Flight 3; Tony Blunt won Flight 4 and Peter Schwartz was the winner in Flight 5. All of you deserve a big round of applause. Consolation Bracket winners were Tony Van Natter, Tom Fitzgerald, John Cobb, Dick Helms and Jerry Westra. Well done, gentleman.
Here comes the really good news. Paul Zapf and Brian Gallup won close matches and made it to the finals and in that final match Brian Gallup claimed the Individual Match Play Championship with a 3 and 2 victory. Congratulations! See you all next year.