Fore!

It's been a few years but we managed to play both January tournaments without a rain out or frost delay! We had 28 players join us for the Chicago System tournament today. Our player of the day is Andy Clark, who shot a 72 with an incredible 25 putts (no one had less than 30). I have to give a shout out to Chris Carmichael. He hadn't played our course in several months and went out in cold, wet conditions and shot a 69 and earned one skin with a birdie on 15! Great rounds Andy and Chris.

With the new World handicap system (more on that later), it was going to be tough to shoot your quota today but we did have three players meet or exceed it, all in the same grouping. Cliff Eby went 3 over his quota to win 1st place (he also got within 2 ft. of a hole in one on #15), Greg Rose went 1 over to win second place. Curt Eby met his quota exactly which was good enough for 1st place in the 2nd flight. Andy Clark won the first flight going one under the quota. Congrats Andy, Curt, and Cliff on your first place wins!

So about that World handicap system...I'm not a fan yet. Almost everyone saw their course handicaps drop anywhere between 2 to 5 strokes even though your USGA handicap is no different. This reason, to the best of my understanding, is instead of your handicap being related to the slope of the course, it also takes the par of the course into effect; that's probably why everyone's handicap has dropped.

Because of this change, I've changed the handicaps of each flight. First flight will range from 0-12 handicap, 2nd flight 13-21, and 3rd flight 22 and up. While it seems like a big gap in handicaps especially for flight 3, this actually does balance the number of players in each flight well (1st and 3rd flights have 17 players while the 2nd flight has 16; we have 3 members with no handicap yet). So this is what I'll go with for now.

Our next tournament is the day before the Super Bowl, February 1st. It is round 1 of the eclectic format, a tournament of which I am fond. For the eclectic, it runs over 2 rounds. In Round 2, you'll have the opportunity to improve your scores from round 1. There is a quirk in the schedule. The 2nd round of the eclectic will take place ONE WEEK LATER ON FEBRUARY 8. This is to prevent our tournaments from conflicting with holiday weekends. So please note we are going back to back Saturdays on February 1st and 8th.

These two rounds are also the zone qualifiers. The NCGA zone championship takes place April 13-14 in Pebble Beach. In order to be eligible please pay $20 at the start of round 1 of the eclectic. Ideally, you'd play in both rounds and finish in the top 4 of entrants. However, if you aren't able to play in both rounds but are interested in going to Pebble Beach, go ahead and put $20 in and you would be the first ones I call as an alternate. Over the past several years, we've needed them (I've gone twice myself as an alternate). It's really a lot of fun so I encourage anyone interested to give it a shot!

Stay warm everyone! See you February 1st!

Matt

I can't miss this!