It was a beautiful crisp sunny Friday morning, as the Golden team played their matches against a tough Greenhaven team, and the Valley team played their matches against Daytona on the west/north Bunker Hills course. The course has experienced some issues with the fairways; some kind of winter kill. A member that I know suggested that they mowed the grass too short late last fall. The greens were better than they were 3 weeks ago, but still not great, and slow.
Golden’s workhorse, Steve Slivken (net 80) barely (by one hole) lost the front nine, and also lost the back nine for 0 points. But Roger Hamm (net 72) crushed his opponent, front, back, match for 6 points. Chris Gaspard (net 70) and captain Dan Olson (net 79) both barely lost their fronts; the decisive moment was the 8th hole (par 3), where both of our opponents drained 30 footers for par, and Dan and and Chris barely missed their shorter par putts. But both prevailed to win the back, and Chris also took the overall, while Dan failed, but pushed the overall. So Golden’s total was 13 out of 24. Golden is now in 5th place, but only 3 points out of 2nd place, and 11 points ahead of the Valley team.
The Valley team was led by Chuck Bernardy’s gross 77 (net 68), missing medalist for the week by only one stroke! Chuck shot a 38 on the West course and was up 5 at the turn. He closed out the North course with a 39, never losing a hole and winning the match up 10! Not sure we’ve ever seen such a drubbing before! Ben Zurn’s net 78 wasn’t nearly enough to match his opponent’s net 73 – Ben was shut out. Dean Penk had a close match going, tied after 7 holes, but came up short on the last two. He came back on the back for the win but not enough to get the match, winning only 2 points. Dave Schoeller rounded out the Valley squad struggling on the front but coming back to push the back and gain a single point for a team score of 9 points and sliding to 9th place.
Current Standings This week’s results
Next week we play in the neighborhood at Wirth where Golden takes on 13th place Gross and Valley plays against 1st place University. Looks like a good chance for Golden to pick up a bunch more points. Valley has their work cut out for them but at least need to hold a cap on the U.
