Reason Number One Why Ron Whitten Should Avoid Paul Sharkey

It’s no big secret — Paul Sharkey thinks oft-times Greenspan site Bandon Dunes is just short of heaven on earth. I happen to agree, at least if you define “earth” as the Pacific Northwest.

Apparently not everyone agrees. Golf Digest‘s Matt Ginella reported earlier this week that his colleague Ron Whitten, GD‘s chief course architecture critic, thinks Bandon is overrated.

Sharkey takes a good many yearly vacations. Here’s hoping he doesn’t run into Whitten at the airport on his way to one of them. The World Team’s captain is no shrinking violet. Mr. Whitten, beware.

How Ignorance of the Rules Can Cost You — Big Time

Roger Maltbie closes those rules pieces he does on NBC golf telecasts with a directive: “if you’re gonna play this game, you gotta know the rules.”

Turns out at least four of us (most importantly, me) don’t know the rules — specifically, the one dealing with what happens when you putt a ball and hit another one at rest on the green.

For those readers not named Aro, O’Brien or Cheuk, this rule (or our ignorance of it) came into play during the first matches (Friday fourball) of 2010. Aro and I led O’Brien and Cheuk 1 up standing on the seventeenth green at Pacific Dunes. I’m not the most patient guy and had pretty much had it with Cheuk’s routine on the greens, which would make Ben Crane blush. I’m also not the best green reader and even worse with my distance control, so when I hit my first putt right where I wanted it it missed the hole by five feet, kept going — and struck O’Brien’s ball, which he hadn’t marked. (No fault of his — I was tired of waiting for his partner.) My declared penalty — loss of hole. O’Brien was in no hurry to accept the hole, but Cheuk took it — as well he should have (we thought). We went to 18 all square and, flustered, Aro and I promptly hacked that hole up to lose the match 1 down.

Aro and I lost our fourball match to O'Brien and Cheuk to start things off in 2010 -- had I known the rules in re: what happens when a putt hits a resting ball on the green, we wouldn't have.

Turns out I was wrong about the penalty.

Rule 19.5 provides that

(i)f a player’s ball in motion after a stroke is deflected or stopped by a ball in match play and at rest, the player must play his ball as it lies. In match play, there is no penalty. In stroke play, there is no penalty, unless both balls lay on the putting green prior to the stroke, in which case the player incurs a penalty of two strokes.

(Emphasis added.) In other words, I shouldn’t have lost the hole, at least not by penalty. Ouch.

Why have I suddenly come to this epiphany, you ask? Well, noted author George Peper was involved in a similar incident against a Canadian named Dough Leith on hole no. 3 on St. Andrews’s Old Course. Leith hit a putt that hit Peper’s ball on the green and promptly conceded the hole, just as I did. Leith went on to lose the match 6&5. Peper “later learned that (Leith) had been wrong — whereas in stroke play there’s a penalty, there is no penalty in match play where one ball struck from the putting green hits another ball that is also on the green.” George Peper, Two Years in St. Andrews: At Home on the 18th Hole (2006) at p.192.

Leith’s knowledge of the rules (or lack thereof) didn’t hurt him severely — he lost 6&5. I hurt me a bundle. Had we not lost 17 we could not have lost the match, and a 1 down loss would have been, at worst, a halve. As captain I probably would have kept Aro and I together rather than breaking us up in favor of new partners Mike Waldner and Jeff Haight, respectively. That wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome of Greenspan Cup XIII — the two new pairs went a combined 6-0 but the Seattle Team still lost 20-16.

It would have, however, made a big difference to me vis-a-vis Norman — in particular, his bragging rights vis-a-vis me.

To borrow from Rog’, I played the game and didn’t know the rules. And it cost me — big time.

Forty-Three!

The 2012 PGA Tour season kicks off today and with it the third year of Greenspan fantasy golf on Yahoo!. I’m happy to report that this year we have forty-three players. That’s up from twenty-seven players last year — a fifty-nine percent increase — and thirteen players the year before.

A three-fold increase since inception. Not bad.

The One Club Open 2011: You Had to See It To Believe It

Newcomer Baron Kofoed shot a four-over par 58 and former World Team member Jason Matzat shot 60 to take the gold and silver at the Fifth or So Annual Greenspan Cup One Club Open at the par three course at Willows Run. Norman Cheuk fired a gross 61 to take third low gross and low net by a mile.

Willows Run owner Brian Patton had the course set up about as tough as it could be. Great fun, but you wouldn't want to do it more than once a year.

The story of the tournament, however, wasn’t Kofoed or Matzat or Cheuk so much as it was Brian Patton — or, more specifically, how he set up his course. To call it “tricked out” would be an understatement. At least two tees were on downslopes and every hole was cut within six feet of the fringe, a few no more than two feet. The pin on hole no. 1 was cut on a downslope about three feet off the fringe on the back edge in such a way that a ball could not be stopped within four feet of the hole. The only way to hole out was to either make it or miss it and hope the hole got in the way when the ball began its roll back down the slope. Simon Spratley recorded a ten on the hole while Peter Fessler and at least two others recorded eights. Those conditions, coupled, with frigid temperatures that never got above forty, made those winning scores all the more remarkable.

Jeff Benezra, Adam Waalkes, Joel Aro, Mike Waldner, Nick Jenkins, Norman Cheuk ...

Next up: Greenspan Cup XV. Unfortunately it isn’t until July.

SCORES
Baron Kofoed 30-28=58 (1st low gross)
Jason Matzat 30-30=60 (2nd low gross)
Chris White 31-31=62 (3rd low gross)
Norman Cheuk 31-30=61 (1st low net)
Tony: 30-33=66
Kevin McCarthy 37-29=66 (3rd low net)
Mike Waldner 35-31=66
Leo Madden 34-33=67
Michael Johnson 34-35=69
Tim O’Brien 38-32=70
Joel Aro 35-35=70
Adam Waalkes 37-34=71
Simon Wilks 35-37=72
Simon Spratley 36-36=72 (2nd low net)
Nicholas Jenkins 36-36=72
Jeff Benezra 37-37=74
Peter Fessler 39-36=75
Rob Stonesifer 45-32=77
Stephanie: 42-36=78
Kyle Sullivan 45-34=79
John Clark 40-WD
Ed Marquez: 43-44=87

Tim O'Brien and Tony Secretario (shown here with Benezra and Stephanie Secretario) were among the nine current Greenspan Cup players in the field. (Not shown: Rob Stonesifer and Leo Madden.)

The Post One Club Horse Race: Was a New Tradition Born?

They say necessity is the mother of invention — but this time it may have been mistake. As it turns out I over-collected (or underpaid) for the One Club by $60, leaving me in a quandary of what to do with said extra cash. We decided to put it up for grabs in a post-tournament horse race on Willows’ putting course.

Our first-ever horse race made for some compelling viewing.

A darn fine decision if I do say so.

About fourteen or so of the original twenty-two One Club players hung around for the hour-long horse race. Jeff Benezra served as the MC and was promptly eliminated on the first hole. We dropped two per hole until the end, when Baron Kofoed, Jason Matzat and Rob Stonesifer remained standing. (Kofoed and Matzat finished 1-2 in the One Club, making them the day’s big winners.) Kofoed two-putted the final hole to take home the big money ($30), while Rob Stonesifer took home second-place honors — and $20 — after Matzat carded a cool ten on the final hole.

Baron Kofoed, flanked here by third- and second-place finishers Jason Matzat and Rob Stonesifer, respectively, won the Horse Race after he won the One Club.

There’s no telling whether we’ll be able to work a horse race into Greenspan Cup proper. But I’m fairly certain it’ll be a fixture after One Clubs in years to come.

RESULTS
1 Baron Kofoed
2 Rob Stonesifer
3 Jason Matzat
Peter Fessler
Norman Cheuk
Michael Johnson
Nick Jenkins
Adam Waalkes
Tony Secretario
Chris White
Joel Aro
Simon Spratley
Ed Marquez
Jeff Benezra

A Greenspan-ish Day Out at Suncadia

Today Tony Secretario, Adam Waalkes, Norman Cheuk, Greg Cheever, Jeff Benezra and me joined six would-be Greenspanners for a day out at Suncadia’s new Rope Rider course. The occasion was the Washington State Golf Association’s “casual day” out and the goal was to preview the new course for future Greenspans.

The course passed the test.

The Seattles beat the Worlds in a side game, but the World Team's Waalkes won the big money.

We played four ball medal over the 6,700-yard Peter Jacobson design. Waalkes and his partner Gordon Stephenson won the big bucks with a score of 62. Non-Greenspanners David Totten and Kyle Sullivan fired a 63 to finish second, while Secretario and Chris White came in third with a 66.

The rest of us got routed.

On a side note, Benezra and I beat Cheever/Cheuk 1 up in a Seattle v. World side match.

A preview, no doubt, of things to come in ’12.

2011 Greenspan Fantasy Is Officially In the Books

The 2011 Greenspan fantasy golf season on Yahoo! fantasy golf is officially in the books. The ’11 season was highlighted by a doubling of the league size (from thirteen to twenty-seven), the addition of a considerable financial component ($100/man) and a decreased reliance on Tiger Woods as the go-to pick.

O'Brien, shown here with fellow fantasy players Jenkins and Gran (and Aro) after a particularly forgettable round, was among the big winners in fantasy golf '11.

Kevin Horton and the World Team’s Tim O’Brien were the season’s big winners. The World Team’s OB, aka Vicadin to Win, had eight top threes, three wins (in a row) and won the season-long points race and $670. Non-Greenspanner Horton (aka Heavys), won the money title with $745 with, incredibly, no individual tournament wins. Kevin would have won the overall points race as well but OB nudged him by eight points in the Tour Championship and four (4) points total — about seven ten thousandths of a percentage point (close stuff, that.) Neither were Bill Haas money — he won roughly $11.44 million and the FedEx Cup today — but suffice it to say, OB’s performance at the Tour Championship this week more than made up for his collapse at Bay Hill.

As for me — well, I wasn’t able to repeat last year’s magic. (More.) Whereas last year I finished in the top three percent of Yahoo! players worldwide and won our fantasy league, this year I could manage no better than an eightieth percentile finish and a sixteenth-place finish in the league. Not bad, but not good, either.

Next up is the Fall Series, a few weeks off, and then the 2012 PGA Tour season. Our goal: fifty-plus players. My goal: to take a few of my greenbacks back from Horton and O’Brien.

Greenspan Represents Well (Again) at the Royal Oaks Member-Guest

In 2009 and 2010, Paul Sharkey and I represented Greenspan fairly well at the Royal Oaks Member-Guest.

This year, a couple of other Greenspanners did us even better.

The blurry pic doesn't do Nelson and Richardson's second-place finish justice.

Longtime World Team warhorse Brad Nelson — he of the stellar singles record (more) — and future World Team addition Michael Richardson — now “Mr2311″ in Greenspan fantasy golf — not only won their flight, they ended up coming in second overall in the ninety-six team field. Only a sudden death playoff loss on the tenth hole kept them from winning it all. (Memo to readers: don’t get above the hole on No. 10, especially when the greens are running about 14 on the stimp.)

According to Nelson, his Greenspan 2012 is, uh, “paid for and then some.”

As for Sharkey and me – well, not so much.

Appropo of nothing, I can’t help but contrast here the performance of a participant in that other tournament that two Greenspanners spun off to form in 2003. I won’t mention the name of it here lest it show up in a Google search, but suffice it to say that one of its players, also a ’11 member-guest participant, had a few too many and proceeded to run his car into an apartment building. Ironically, two years earlier the good folks at the Oaks held a fundraiser to help pay for medical expenses he incurred in getting — yup — a kidney transplant.

Nelson and Richardson, by contrast, kept it on the straight and narrow — they didn’t get boozed up and, according to Nelson, Richardson’s tee balls tracked to the fairways like the aforementioned nimwit’s car tracked to that apartment building.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Congrats to the World Team boys for their stellar finish. May they get all that great play out of their systems before Greenspan 2012.

The Greenspan Dream 18

I just finished reading — or heavily perusing — David Barrett’s “Dream 18,” a coffee table book with compilations of some of the world’s great golf holes. It got me to thinking about a Greenspan Dream 18, and since today I have nothing more to look forward to than watching Brendan Steele and Jason Dufner battle it out for the PGA Championship, I thought I’d give our Dream a crack.

I should probably say something up front about my criteria. I do not mean to suggest that what follows are the “best” eighteen holes we’ve ever played. If it was, then virtually all of my picks would probably be located in Bandon, Oregon. Instead, I added elements like “memorability” and “place in Greenspan lore” to the list, while still putting heavy emphasis on hole quality. As well, I tried to pick holes from a variety of courses so the mythical course represented our fourteen years rather than just the last two.

So without further ado, my Greenspan Dream 18:

Par Threes
– Pacific Dunes, No. 11 (Bandon, OR)(148 yards): Beach to the left, prevailing wind off the ocean, short iron in hand. Not an easy shot.

Norman Cheuk teeing off on Pacific's famous eleventh hole.

– Bear Mountain GC (Victoria, BC), No. 11 (135 yards): Probably as close as Canada gets to TPC Sawgrass’s famous seventeenth. Famous in Greenspan lore as the place where Greg Cheever mistook a tee marker for his ball and, in the process, created his own trophy.

The eleventh green at Bear Mountain in Victoria.

– Olympic View GC (Victoria BC), No. 6 (238 yards): Not a great hole as great holes go, but at 238 yards over water, a definite scorecard killer. Marshal’s complaints about our slow play there — go figure — led to our decision not to return to Victoria. Ever.

– Victoria GC, No. 8 (Victoria, BC)(115 yards): A combination of Troon No. 8 and Pebble Beach No. 7 in Canada. May be the toughest short hole we’ve ever played.

Victoria's No. 8.

Par Fours
– Okanagan GC (Quail), No. 18 (Kelowna, BC)(408 yards): By general consensus the best-ever Greenspan finishing hole.

The eighteenth at Quail -- a mid-iron approach over water to an elevated green with the match on the line.

– Predator Ridge (Predator), No. 16 (Kelowna, BC)(455 yards): Semi-blind tee shot to a target fairway is fine, but its the second shot, a long iron to a green far, far below, that made this hole the talk of the tournament. Adam Waalkes made net 1 here in 2001 to beat me and Chris Johnson.

– Pacific Dunes, No. 4 (Bandon, OR)(449 yards): The folks who wrote Pacific’s website claim its among the best par fours in the world. I have to agree, although I’ve never made better than 7 here.

Aro hitting his tee shot off into the fog on Pacific's fourth hole, 2010.

– Pacific Dunes, No. 13 (Bandon, OR)(444 yards): The Pacific to the left, massive sand dunes to the right, and a prevailing wind in your face, this is no doubt one of the top fifty par fours on earth.

Jeff Benezra in front of the sand dunes to the right of Pacific's thirteenth green.

– Bandon Dunes, No. 4 (Bandon, OR)(410 yards): Second shot is among the most beautiful anywhere.

Behind Jeff Haight is Bandon's fourth green. After that is Japan.

– Old MacDonald, No. 16 (Bandon, OR)(455 yards): Already banged the keyboard aplenty on this one.

'Alps' -- the sixteenth at Old MacDonald.

– Bandon Dunes, No. 16 (Bandon, OR)(363 yards): One of the great risk-reward par fours we’ve ever played, Simon Birrell reportedly reached it with a four iron — twice.

To play No. 16 at Bandon is to never forget it.

– Bear Mountain, No. 17 (Victoria, BC)(311 yards): Just reachable if you really nail your drive, but miss the green and getting up and down is no easy task. Another great risk-reward hole and, as the second-to-last hole of the day, made for some serious drama.

– Bear Mountain Ranch, No. 4 (Chelan, WA)(411 yards): No doubt the most controversial inclusion if anyone actually reads this entry, the tee shot here alone — blind, and over a cliff — makes this hole among the most memorable in Washington.

Thinking about the tee shot on the fourth at Bear Mountain Ranch.

– Victoria GC, No. 7 (Victoria, BC)(356 yards): Ocean to the left, strong winds, buried elephant under the green. What’s not to love?

Ben Hogan is said to have called the green on Victoria's seventh one of the most difficult he'd ever played.

Par Fives

– Predator Ridge (Predator) No. 14 (Kelowna, BC)(520 yards): With a fairway that wraps around a lake on the right, this hole dares you to cut off as much fairway as possible to have a go at it in two. The green was home to the famous Scoccolo Bee, which is reason alone to include this hole on the list.

– Bandon Trails No. 16 (Bandon, OR)(491 yards): At 494 yards on the card I thought this hole was very reachable. Then I saw it. Precise drive, even more precise second shot and then a blind third shot up a hill make this hole all you’ll ever want in a par 5. (Click here for more pics.)

No. 16 at Bandon Trails -- one very tough hole.

– Pacific Dunes No. 12 (Bandon, OR)(529 yards): It says 529 yards on the card, but into the wind it plays more like 629. I hit driver, 3-wood, 4-wood here in 2011 — and I was still a smidge short. If ever a hole was a hidden beast, it’s this one.

In '11 I hit three full woods into the wind at Pacific's No. 12 -- and still came up short.

– Harvest Golf Club No. 2 (Kelowna, BC)(551 yards): Very long and very open save the orchard to the left of the fairway, the second hole at Harvest captures the essence of golf there — wide, open, and fun. This dogleg left is not “great” by any stretch, but if all holes in this eighteen were like No. 12 at Pacific or No. 16 at Trails, this “dream” 18 would be a nightmare.

So there you have it. Eighteen of the best golf holes we’ve ever had the pleasure to play at Greenspan.

Will anyone other than me care about this eighteen? I doubt it. But it provided a nice addition to what turned out to be a pretty compelling final round of the PGA Championship (won by Keegan Bradley), so I consider its purpose served.

In Defense of the Chris Berman Nicknames

Paul Sharkey is a man of strong opinions, and he is not one to keep them to himself. Last year, the longtime World Team captain decided he had a problem with my then-new Greenspan Chris Berman nicknames — so much of a problem that he twice asked me to remove them from the site lest he be too embarrassed by them to tell anyone of the site’s existence. Rather than completely remove them I buried them on a single post — a suitable compromise by a man (me) always willing to put others’ feelings before his own.

I can almost hear the conversation: BN: I don't like 'Willie' Nelson. PS: Got any better ideas? BN: No.

This year at Bandon, the Berman nickname critics were at it again. This time it was Brad Nelson who took the lead as Chief Popcorn Thrower. Nelson’s feelings no doubt stem at least in part from his own nickname — his Brad “Willie” Nelson is only slightly better than my own Nick”el and Dime” Jenkins. Nevertheless he was after me and after a no-win Saturday, I wasn’t much in the mood to defend my art.

Two weeks removed, however, I am. And while I admit not all my nicknames would make the Swammy proud, some of them certainly would:

Rank Up There With the Best of ‘em
- Steve “If the Glove Don’t Fit You Must Ac”Whitaker — Not even the most hardened critic can deny this is greatness.
- Mike “Pink Floyd’s The Wal”dner — Ditto.
- Greg “Leave it to” Cheever — Almost too easy (or maybe that’s just a sign of talent)
- Chris “Stomp Your Feet and Clap Your” Hansen — “I will, I will!” says Nelson.
- Matt “English” Beaton — Even money says Beaton doesn’t know who the English Beat was.

Every Bit as Good as the Always Popular “Julio ‘Won’t You Take Me on a Sea’ Cruz”
- Ed Garth “Vader” — Too easy. I kinda like Ed “Sammy Hagar”th, too.
- Vince Deandre “the Giant” — This could be in the top category, but I must remain modest.
- Mike “Full Sail” Kalian — Slightly better than Mike “I can’t be bothered to hang around for the picture” Kalian
- Stefan Gran “Cracker” — thought about Stefan Gran”imals,” too.
- Leo Madden “About You” — What I said about Deandre.
- Marty “Band” McQuaid — “Foreign” McQuaid would work here, too.
- Nick “Pistol Pete” Perovich — Credit to Paul Ahern for this one.
- Adam “Board” Waalkes — “Under the Board” Waalkes would work, too.
- Jon “Step on the Gas”ton — Particularly fitting until he sped up his play.
- Joel “Handle with C”Aro – Particularly fitting until, uh, still particularly fitting.
- Jeff Haight “Crimes” — Good nickname, but Haight isn’t the guy you think of when you think hate crimes — or hate anything, for that matter.
- John “My Oh” Majewski — Solid (Dave Neihaus, RIP)
- Brad “Captain” Kirkpatrick — He later became a captain his own tournament. “Jeanne” would have worked, too.
- Paul “Great White” Sharkey — So many other possibilities. “Peter, Paul and Mary” Sharkey, etc.
- Jack “Is Always” Laidlaw — See what I said about Aro
- Rob “Rolling” Stonesifer — Obvious, but a little lacking in creativity.
- Randy “That’s a Great!” Price — Gotta love the commercial
- Brad “Who’s the” Bossio — I’m pretty sure Tony Danza did a porn with Marilyn Chambers (see for yourself)
- Joel “Off the” Marcus — see what I said about Aro, Laidlaw.
- Abe “Oh N”Otoupal — see what I said about Aro, Laidlaw, Marcus.

Not Great, But Hardly Worthy of Scorn
- Jason “Haz”mat — Matzat claims no one ever called him Hazmat growing up. Yeah, right.
- Andy “Mira” Kelleher — “Helen”?
- Casey “Prime” Ribera — This could be in the higher category.
- Pat “The Dryer At My” Scoccolo — Fitting — it it isn’t the course that’s against him, it must be the dryer.
- “Tiny” Tim O’Brien — Kinda lacking in the creativity department. Tim O’Brien’s “Song” isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly happy, either. Tim “Saving Private” O’Brien is just okay.
- Norman “Num” Cheuk — I had “Up” here, but not a good visual, that pic from Norman on The Clipper notwithstanding.
- Chris “Elton” Johnson — Chris “You Can Call Me Ray, You Can Call Me Jay, But You Doesn’t Have to Call Me” Johnson (view) was a bit too long.
- Brad “Willie” Nelson — Uninspiring, I admit. “Full,” which Gene has (more), isn’t much better.
- Nick”el and Dime” Jenkins — My own nickname is lacking!
- Jeff “Gentle” Benezra — “Has” would be cruel and inaccurate.
- Mark “Forever” Young — So many possibilities, it’s almost impossible to be satisfied.
- Brian “Cat in the” Patten — Probably should be higher but, again, so many possibilities.
- John “Feathered” Harrison — Maybe “Sister Golden” Harrison would be better.
- Dave “Volcanic” Ashcraft
- Paul “Town” Maier — Ho hum for a ho hum guy.
- Doug Schroth”ello” — A challenge, this one.
- Kent Fisher “Price” (RIP) — Better than “Bobby” or “Amy.” “That’s a big” would work, too.
- Dave Sturtevant “Halen” — I challenge anyone to do any better.
- Simon “Says” Birell — I like Simon Birell “Dorado” here, too.

Needs Improvement
- Rob “Pulled” Thilo — Nelson was right about this one — no one pulls their thigh.
- Tony “Naughty” Secretario — Had to be something about a secretary.
- Bill “Paper” Ream — Reminds me of Office Depot.

I’m open to suggestions for any of the names in the bottom two categories as well as one for Paul Ahern, who remains un-nicknamed.

I’m particularly anxious to hear from Sharkey and Nelson on suggested upgrades. If you’re gonna identify the problem, you better also identify a solution.