OVGA Amateur Golf Tour

As I’m sure you’ve seen, the Vineyard only allotted us 88 spots after telling me I had until 12:00 on Tuesday to get final numbers to them.  I don’t think they anticipated 104 would be turning out.  So as a result we had to rework things to get down to 88 players.  For those of you who were left out of the event, I apologize and it was not my intention in any way to leave any golfers out.  This is what happens on occasion and those of you who paid and were left out will have rollovers to another event on the schedule.

Also, the tee times are moving up.  Instead of 11:45, the first groups will go at 11:20 and every group after will follow in 10 minute intervals.  We are still running in a wave start (off #1 and #10) so our final group will go at 1:00 instead of 1:05.  I will send out the start times and pairings again via email tomorrow along with the Event preview.  If anyone has questions please feel free to fire away.

I also wanted to remind everyone that the deadline for Beckett Ridge (May 10) and Yankee Trace (May 11) is Tuesday, May 6 at 12:00.  Please have your tee times selected and your payments in by this date.  Any matches postponed from Vineyard will be made up on these dates so please get back to me if you haven’t done so already and let me know which date your match will take place.

Lastly, we will soon have trophies to go with the gift certificates for the every event’s flight winners.  These will be retroactive to Opening Day and we should have them hopefully by Beckett Ridge.

Again, thank you for everyone’s understanding concerning Vineyard!

Chad

The first four events of the year are in the books and it’s time to take a look back at a few issues that have arisen.

PACE OF PLAY

While relatively good for the first few events, it’s always good to cover a few simple things that we’ve seen. 

#1 - Always play ready golf.  There is no “honor system” in the OVGA when it comes to hitting your shot.  The old tour saying is, he who’s ready first, hits first. 

#2 - Play your shot before helping someone else look for their ball.  If you delay hitting your shot to help someone look for their lost ball it holds up play.  Go ahead and hit your shot and then go help.  

#3 - Once you leave the tee box or position of your last shot to advance there is no going back should your ball be lost or OB.  This holds up pace of play.  If you think there is a chance that your ball is lost or OB please hit a provisional.  If you leave the tee box and find your ball is lost, you may drop where the group feels the ball is lost and play your shot from there.  But you incur the regular stroke and distance penalty + another stroke.  In other words, your dropped ball would constitute the landing spot of your provisional ball (3rd shot) so you would be hitting 4 from there.

CHEATING - RULES 

Cheating will not be tolerated.  It’s your responsibility to know the rules and to count your strokes correctly.  We’ve already had an instance of incorrect scoring be reported to the scoring table following a round.  There is no reason to cheat or not know the rules concerning balls OB.  If we find that people are cheating to earn skins or CTP we’ll remove both side games thus eliminating the need to fudge scores.  Lord knows we aren’t playing for large checks at the end of the tournament and most of us are out here for the enjoyment of the game…be honest.

ARRIVING AT THE COURSE 

Please try to be at the course 30 minutes before your tee time.  There may be cases were the course lets us out early so be prepared to go within that 30 minute window around your tee time.

A lot of what you see here is preemptive on our part.  I’ve been very impressed with everything to this point.  We’re constantly striving for perfection with our tournaments.  So please help us by doing your part when you can and by passing along any info that could help us do so.

NICKLAUS FLIGHT

David Smith won his first OVGA event, firing a 1-under 69 (net) for a one shot win over Justin Bonomini (70).  Ron Alvey (71) finished two shots back.  Saturday was Smith’s 2nd career OVGA event following up his debut at Windy Knoll last year.  Bonomini had low gross for the tournament with a 74.

PALMER FLIGHT

Mike Greivenkamp recorded his first career OVGA victory in his 23rd event.  His 3-over 73 (net) was a shot better than Bruce Nourse (74) and two shots better than Venkat Devireddy, Tom Haley and Michael Frank (75).  Nourse was the only player to break 90 gross with an 89, but it was Greivenkamp’s day in the sun.

HOGAN FLIGHT

What a day for Dan Furlong.  He makes his OVGA debut, wins a skin and finishes three shots in front to earn his first career victory.  Furlong’s 4-under, net 66, was 3 shots better than Charles Felts who posted an equally impressive net 69.  Bill Hansell and Tim Haverkos tied for 3rd, 8 shots back (74).

TREVINO FLIGHT

And not to mention that Furlong also took the Trevino Flight much in the same manner as the Hogan Flight.  Winning the OVGA’s 50 and over flight by three shots over Felts.  Greivenkamp finished 7 shots back in 3rd.

LOPEZ FLIGHT

Sometimes it pays to be the only one in your flight.  Heather Bronner claimed her first Lopez Flight win with a net 77.  She also finished tied for 7th in the Hogan flight.

CTP WINNERS ($51)

Charles Felts, Bill Weitzel

SKINS WINNERS ($31)

Dan Furlong, Joe Wieland, Jim Cachat, Tom Camacho

The 2008 Applebee’s Match Play bracket has been announced.  71 players will be taking part, with play-in matches taking place over the next 2 weeks to get the field down to 64 players. 

The top seeds for the tournament are Elliott Cuff (2.9), Justin Bonomini (3.5), Scott Middleton (3.6) and Darrin Bollenbacher (4.5).  The average handicap entered into the tournament is 12.9. 

Last year, Tom Camacho defeated Ed Thompson to win the tournament.  Past winners include Joe Vlachos (2005) and Jerry Inebnit (2006).

To see the complete bracket please click the link below…you can also make predictions about who you think will win each match:

http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=268448&tclass=