Jim Grosjean
As the summer mercifully fades into fall, the Mountainview-Preserve Men’s Golf Association (MPMGA) continues to offer a weekly golf event that can exhilarate and/or frustrate its members. The tournament that frustrated me the most this summer was unquestionably the Four Club and Putter contest. Golf is a tough game when played with a full complement of 14 clubs, and taking away nine of those clubs makes it even more difficult.
Most players made the driver their first pick of clubs in order to get their accustomed distance off the tee. After that, the choices became sheer guesswork. I chose my clubs based on the erroneous assumption that I would hit every shot perfectly. My hybrid, seven iron, and sand wedge were pretty much useless, since I never positioned my ball to the correct yardage. Bumping a seven iron all over the course just didn’t work well. It worked out for Bob Ogle who, fresh off a hole-in-one during the previous week’s tourney, shot even par 72 with just the four clubs and putter! He can remove those superfluous nine extra clubs from his bag from now on. I think Bob’s regular opponents on Saturday should demand a stroke for every club he uses beyond four clubs and a putter.
There were some other players who seemed to make great (lucky) club choices. Those flight winners in the gross and net divisions included Egan Hicks, Mike Miller, Lowell Hegg, Bruce Keefer, David Cohen, Joe Oczak, Scott Newberry, and Larry McNamee. Hats off to those gentlemen, but in the future, they’ll have to contend with a full set of clubs.
Most recently, a Shambles tournament was played on Aug. 17, and a four-man point quota game was played on Aug. 24. Shambles flight winners were Randy Breier and Tim Ward, Doug Jones and Shel Jahn, Paul Caleb and Bob Rosencrance, and Kelly Paxton and Dan Schroeder. Flight winners of the four-man team quota game were Don Sanders, Mike Miller, Bill Bowers, and Bob Rosencrance; Grant Stewart, Kevin Conway, Joe Oczak, and Phil Szajnuk; and Paul Zapf, Lowell Hegg, Bob Stiens and Paul Caleb.
As usual, any non-members who would like to join in on the fun (madness) of the MPMGA should contact Dave Quesnell at [email protected].