Roadrunner Champions Grant Farquhar and Beaver Simpson (right) with their Saddle Trophies
The 2014 SaddleBrooke Men’s Golf Association’s premier tournament, the RoadRunner Member-Guest Golf Tournament was held April 24, 25 and 26. The players competed in five flighted nine hole matches over the three days of the tournament with the winners determined by a final day shootout of the leaders of the nine flights.
This year the matches were played in windy conditions which added to the challenges of the competition. But, like last year’s tournament, there were two more holes-in-one, although not on the holes with the Ford, the Lexus or the Coyote Golf Cars EZGO golf cart up for grabs. The honors for the two holes-in-one go to Jeff Lefebvre for his hole-in-one on SaddleBrooke hole No. 2 on Thursday, April 24 and the second to Dick Modos for his hole-in-one on the difficult Tucson hole No. 2 (which the day before had had the Ford going to a hole-in-one).
Flight winners were Flight 1, Beaver Simpson (member) and Grant Farquhar; Flight 2, Ed Moisio (member) and Mick Borm; Flight 3, Don Molitor (member) and Ben Morgan; Flight 4, Nick Francis (member) and Randy Yeager; Flight 5, Phil Cohen (member) and Tony Jewett; Flight 6, Gan Avery (member) and Bill Nielsen; Flight 7, Dick Bogen (member) and Bob LeClair; Flight 8, Cecil VanAllen (member) and Jerry Louthain; and Flight 9, Jim Nisbet (member) and Rich Sartor. Flight winners also took home a SaddleBrooke Roadrunner golf flag signed by all the participants in their specific flight.
The shootout to determine the tournament winners was held on the SaddleBrooke nine with flight winners competing on three holes to determine the final four teams to play in the three hole final shootout. Teams of Beaver/Farquhar, Moisio/Borm, VanAllen/Louthain and Nisbet/Sartor played SB 7, 8 and 9 with one team being eliminated per hole with the final two teams competing for the championship on SB 9. Two teams tied for second place on SB 8 and had to play a chip and putt off from about 36 feet to determine who went to the last hole. The team of Simpson/Farquhar chipped/putted to one foot six inches closer to the hole than the team of Nisbet/Sartor. A very close call for the final winning team!
In addition to the golf and daily prizes for winning or tying individual matches, participants enjoyed a stag dinner in the Roadrunner Grill, a $100 spending spree in the Addidas/Taylor Made Concept Shop, hole-in-one prize chances, closest-to-the-pin contests by flight and lunches after the Wednesday and Thursday rounds. Members’ and guests’ wives enjoyed a luncheon in the Vistas Restaurant with a fashion show and everyone enjoyed the Awards Dinner on Saturday night with entertainment by SaddleBrooke’s favorite one man band, Harry Mathews. A big thanks goes to Tournament Director Bob Koerne for another excellent member-guest tournament.