Week 1 - Recap

Bito/Gomez vs. Frank/Steve - In what was supposed to be a battle between the two "best" teams in the league, this match was all over the place.  Bito/Gomez started 6 strokes in the hole due to handicapping and at the turn had only made up one of those shots.  Frank/Steve would have to try very hard to lose their lead, especially after recording a par on number 10.  But then this happened:  double, triple, single, double, single, single, single, single bogey to finish the last eight holes.  In that span Frank/Steve shot 12-over to post a nasty 48 on the back nine, losing by a net 4 strokes.  In fact, they had the worst gross score (86) of the field.  GoMex was able to drag Bito to victory!  Final net score: 76-80.

Justin/Chandler vs. E-Flo/Neil - The second match featured our first replacement player of the season: Cong.  Since he is immensely better than Neil, we re-calculated the handicapped based on his estimated score of 90.  This dropped the number of strokes Justin/Chandler had to give from 8 to 2, but that didn't prevent the wheels from coming off early as they opened up with bogey, double bogey.  Eleven pars followed, which wasn't enough to match Cong's iron-play or E-Flo's luck (every tree he hit bounced his ball into the fairway).  Final net score: 74-73.

Geoff/Reid vs. Robb/Ryan - There were enough sandbags in the final paring to prevent the Katrina disaster.  Even though we all felt Robb/Ryan's handicaps were a little high, I don't think anyone expected them to post the low round of 74.  That includes a 2-under 33 on the front nine, before cooling off with a 41 on the back.  Nevertheless, Geoff/Reid opened with a horrendous 9-over on the first 6 holes!  Final painful net score: 84-68.

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We got VERY lucky with conditions as Pebble Creek is the worst draining course in the area.  However, the fairways were dry and only two greens were saturated.  Despite it getting windy on the back nine, it was a beautiful day for golf.

As far as handicaps are concerned, I think the first two match-ups were perfect.  However, I'm making some tweaks to the base handicaps which ultimately affect the USGA numbers for week 2 (slightly raising Gomez and Steve while lowering Robb and Buchanan). The challenge in future weeks is going to be substitutions.  So we'll just provide our best guess and as long as both teams agree on the first tee, that's what we'll go with.

Excellent first week, and we'll resume play on Memorial Day (May 30th).