Club championships announced as season nears end

Cape Region golf clubs continue to celebrate their club champions for the 2015 season.

Kings Creek Country Club held its Men’s and Ladies Member-Member championships the weekend of Sept. 12-13. A total of 80 members participated, filling the course during the competition.

The tournament was based on two days of 18 holes of golf, with a different format on each nine. The first day was a scramble on the front nine and alternate shot on the back nine. The second day was to be a better ball on the front and aggregate on the back.

Torrential rains on Saturday forced a suspension of play. The ladies resumed play Sunday morning and were able to finish their alternate shot format. The men finished their scramble in the morning, but time constraints cancelled the alternate shot format, turning their event into a three-round tournament instead of four.

Scott Bourdreau and Andy Rowe had a gross score of 147 to win by five strokes. Pete O'Sullivan and Ed Clark won the men’s net category by 1.5 strokes.

Deb Ward and Judy Wetzel shot a team gross score of 204 to win by 14 strokes among the ladies. Lisa Schofield and Jackie Everett combined to win the net category by a mere 0.4 strokes.

In the men’s gross category, John Purple Sr. and Tyson Mayers took second, followed by Chris Brown and Jason Gaughan in third, and Sean Toner and Adam Schmidt in fourth.

Geoff Riddell and Vaughn Harman finished in second in the net category, with Steve Lett and Joe Graham in third, and Keith Engle and Bruce Ehrensaal in fourth.

Lisa Smith and Jenifer Flinchbaugh finished second in the ladies’ gross competition, followed by Melanie Pereira and Winnie Sewell in third.

Atom Irwin and Hope Adams took the second spot in the net competition, with Joanne Yurik and Denise Stewart taking third.

Kings Creek CC also announced the winners of its 2015 season Net Match Play Golf Tournaments. Adam Schmidt won the Board of Governors Cup for the men, and Kathy Casey won the Vice Presidents Cup for the ladies.

Andy Rowe took second place among the men, and Barbara Wisneski was the ladies’ runner-up.

The competitions began with dozens of entrants playing 18-hole bracket matches throughout the summer, leading up to the 27-hole final matches. Schmidt bested Rowe 4-and-2 in the men’s final match. The ladies tournament went to the last hole, with Casey defeating Wisneski one-up on the 27th hole.

Kings Creek Head Golf Professional Kevin Wiest said, “Once again, our summer-long club Net Match Play Tournaments were exciting and hard fought. The players were enthusiastic about the challenge, and many matches went down to the wire on the final holes.”

Never too late to Tee It Forward

For the last several years, major golf organizations such as the United States Golf Association and the Professional Golf Association have combined to support the Tee It Forward initiative.

The goal is to increase the fun golfers have while playing their favorite sport by encouraging them to use the tee boxes that best suit their game. Playing a shorter course should lead to lower scores and an improvement in the post-game mood.

When I first wrote about this a while ago, the statistics folks involved with the program pointed out that the “regular” tees are typically too far back relative to most golfers’ average driving distances. The equivalent tee boxes for the PGA Tour, for example, would force the pros to play well over 8,000 yards for 18 holes, instead of the 7,000-yard layouts that are now their norm.

However, many golf courses only “suggest” tee box selections based on average handicaps, if they make any suggestions at all.

John Eustis, a golf buddy of mine, is visiting family out West this summer. He recently sent me a copy of the scorecard for Chambers Bay, site of this year’s U.S. Open.

Each tee box designation on the card refers to driver distance. The Navy tees (7,165 yards) are for players averaging over 280-yard drives. The Sand tees (6,513 yards) are for golfers averaging 225-280, and the White tees (6,015 yards) are set for those averaging 200-225 off the tee. The Blue tees (5,278 yards) are recommended for those whose drives are usually less than 200 yards.

I like this approach to encouraging a more realistic set of tees for all golfers. It’s directly in line with the Tee It Forward analysis and recommendations. Handicap averages can mask a wide variety of average driver distances. The direct correlation between average drives and the right tee box for each golfer makes a lot more sense.

Let’s hope more clubs adopt this approach, before they reorder their golf scorecards for next season.

Local Club Competition Results

The Kings Creek Ladies 9 Hole group played a Tee to Green game Sept. 21, in which only the strokes needed to reach the greens were counted.

Nathalie McGregor won first place, with Mary Beth Merolla in second and Jeanne Drake in third. Merolla also won the closest to the pin contest on the 16th hole at 26-feet-6-inches.