Top Gun Tournament

With the new Modified Stableford format, all 8 players were required to play a full 18 holes.Phil Wantuck and Dan Barbee were at the top of the leader-board after 2 holes. JY Lee replaced Dan at the top with Phil, carding a par on #3 (net birdie for JY). Both Dan and Phil fell back with triple-doubles on 4 and 5, leaving KK Lee and Eunmee Choi in 2nd and 3rd behind the steady lead of JY. The lead would grow as JY parred #6 and birdied #7. By the end of the first 9, Dan Barbee had inched back towards the top with pars at #6 and #8. JY's lead over Dan was 5, with KK and Phil both 7 back, and Eunmee and a rebounding Steve Pitt both 8 back.

Phil and Steve both matched JY's par on #10 to get into 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, and the leader-board remained steady through 13. A triple bogey from Phil and a par from Steve on the airstrip-adjacent 14th hole flipped their positions, but a par by JY on the same hole meant that Steve gained no ground on the leader, still 5 back with 4 holes to play. Steve and JY traded net pars on 15 and 16, but when JY scored a triple bogey on the difficult 17th, the door was opened for Mr. Pitt. Steve was unable to capitalize fully as he tapped in for a double bogey, but with one hole left, he was in striking distance of the leader, only 3 back. JY bogeyed the last (net par) to finish with a round of 84 and a total of 4 stableford points, meaning that Steve (in the second grouping) had to birdie the hole (net eagle) to win the trophy. Film footage from the event has been lost, but one can imagine the finish. Steve hits his approach into the green-side bunker. JY stands eagerly to the side, excited and nervously glancing at the coveted Top Gun Trophy. Steve sets up in the sand, gets good contact through the ball as it moves up over the lip of the sand and towards the flag. But it is hit a little too hard and bounces just a foot past the hole, rolling out to 10 feet. Steve two-putts for a bogey and the tournament is over. JY Lee is the champion.

Congratulations JY!

Playoffs Day 2

Bob MacArthur came out swinging in the first group and together with Joe Davis won 3 of the first 5 holes against Dave Conde and Michael Brantley. A par on number 2 by Dave brought Team 3 back a little, but Bob's par on number 8 led to a 3-hole victory by Team 1, more than halving Team 3's 11 point advantage coming into the day.

Bob Page and Jung Lee took a 1-hole advantage early for Team 3, but Mike Gattucci's par on number 6 brought Team 1 back even in the second grouping. Bob and Jung felt the pressure and responded with ice in the veins, taking turns getting pars on numbers 7 and 8 to build up a two-hole advantage that they would carry to the end. This rebuilt Team 3's lead to up to 9, leaving a herculean task for the last grouping of Brian Nakamoto and Dan Barbee against the Lazaruk family.

In the final group, par was the score to beat for every hole. Tim's par on the 1st was washed out by the handicap advantage of Dan Barbee's bogey. Younger Lazaruk parred the 2nd to take an early lead but Brian's par on #3 brought team 1 back to even. Tim and Brian traded pars on #4, but even scores on the long par 3 from both Dan and Brian, followed by another par from Mr. Nakamoto on #6 gave team 1 a two-hole advantage. Most likely unbeknownst to them, however, Dan and Brian had to win the last 3 holes outright in order to bring home the championship. The chances for this scenario were snuffed out quickly as both father and son parred the short par-3 7th.

In real-time (meaning if this had been on broadcast TV), the championship moment probably came as Tim and Justin both matched Brian's par on #8, with Bob and Jung playing reasonable drives on #9 and Dave and Michael finishing off their halve of the final hole. Fans rushed the 9th fairway and Brian and Dan managed through the crowd to par #9, but the season had been decided.

Congratulations to Team 3's victory in 2019!

Playoffs Day 1

Courtesy of their regular season sweep, team 3, led by Bob Page, starts with a 3 point advantage. Team 1, led by putting master Joe Davis, has a tough road to the championship trophy.

The pair of Danny "Modelo" Vargas and Dwight Evard gave team 1 a solid start but a hot round by Neal Carney and a clutch par on number 8 by his partner Sohail Syed gave Team 3 the early lead.

In the second grouping, Captain Bob Page had a stellar round, tied for the day's best 4-under handicap, and playing partner Jung Lee put up solid numbers including a birdie on the seventh. But Bruce Ritzi and Dan Barbee both equaled Bob's feat of shooting 4 below their handicaps to get Team 1 back into the championship.

Our final day 1 group featured secret club professionals Dave Maxwell and Tim Lazaruk dueling each other with partners Chang Park and Phil Wantuck, respectively. After splitting 3 holes and trading victories on numbers 3 and 4. Tim and Phil pulled away with back to back birdies on 6 and 7, with Phil getting the first tweet on number 6 (probably with one of those signature 320 yard drives setting up a short chip and a putt) and Tim carding a 2 on the short par 3 seventh (I'm imagining a decent tee shot to 16 feet and rolling in the putt on the right, uphill side of the cup).

Team 3 ended the day with a strong 11 point lead, but Joe Davis had a strong practice round (also sinking a birdie putt on number 7) ahead of day 2 and is eager to lead his team back into mix, making Bob and company sweat it out until the last putt is made.

2019

Hello Twilite League members. A new season is upon us. Time to brush the snow off those clubs and get back to the business of enjoying golf.

Big changes are in store this year. First, we are increasing the number of people we send out from our teams each week. The number is now 6, up from the previous five. Each group of 6 representatives are divided into two-man teams to play best-ball matches against their opponents. Two-man teams are not chosen entirely arbitrarily, but must be split up according to handicap ranks. This means the top two handicap players play together, followed by the next two in handicap ranking and so on.

The season is 18 weeks long. At the end of each 9 week period, the team with the most points will qualify for the playoffs at the end of the season. If the team that won the 1st 9-week period, also wins the 2nd 9-week period, the team with the 2nd most points over the entire 18-week schedule will qualify for the playoffs. (Note: the league rules concerning the playoff format still describes the system used last year. Stayed tuned for updates on that format after the team captains get together to discuss it).

As a reminder, there is still no single designated commissioner to replace the wonderful Dennis Anderson. Instead, we employ a commission by committee approach (self-nominations are welcome). The 4 team captains will work together to make rulings, pay the bills, update the website, and address any concerns from league members.

Monday, March 11 is our first day on the course. Have fun out there!

New fourball format

As stated above, we have a new competition format this year. It's sometimes known as fourball, or fourball better ball. Each player plays their own ball. At the end of the hole, the best score of each pair is compared to determine the winner of the hole. Two points are at play for each foursome on each hole. Handicaps are accounted for by subtracting the lowest handicap from all players and awarding strokes on holes below or equal to that adjusted handicap. For example, if a person with a 10 handicap is playing in a foursome with a low handicap of 5, the 10 handicap player gets a stroke on the 5 hardest holes. In the rare case that this difference may be greater than 9, the high handicap player will only get a maximum of one stroke per hole. Refer to the sample scorecard from last year below, comparing last years format to this years (winning score on each hole is highlighted in yellow). Note that in the new team format, 4 holes are halved (# 1, 4, 7, and 9), Team 3 would win 3 holes (#3, 5, and 8), and Team 4 would win 2 holes (#2 and 6), amounting to a final score of 10 to 8 in favor of team 3. This compares to an averaged score of 10.5 to 7.5 in last year's format.

Modified Stableford format for Top Gun

Since points are awarded to twosomes and the Top Gun celebrates individual greatness, we have also adopted a new Top Gun format. This is a modified Stableford format, where you earn (or lose) points base on your play relative to par on each hole, adjusting for handicap. In this format, your unadjusted handicap is used and more than 1 stroke per hole is possible. For instance, if you have a 10 handicap, you would get one stroke per hole except for the 3rd (hardest hole) when you get two strokes. Using the same scores from above, the sample scorecard below shows how each player earns points. The average number of points per round is used to rank all the players (min: 5 rounds) and the top 8 qualify for the tournament.