2018 Rapture Recap & Off-season

First time captain Casey drafted a winning combination, as Blue pounded the Pink over the weekend in a 9-7 victory. It was close and very competitive, and the courses were awesome. While oppressive at times, the heat was much better than the typical rain delays we see in August. Let's quickly recap with 100% accurate commentary:

Day 1
It was "blowout day" in the Four-Ball format. The four losing teams only won two holes per match on average. The Reid/Casey loss was probably most surprising, as JW and Geoff really played well together, leaving their opponents stunned after the round. With Blue's only point, Faz/Brendan dominated the course, making multiple gross-birdies and winning with the largest margin (6&5). Brendan would have shot -8 net on the day... so maybe he's primed for a DPT Cup run in Spring 2019.

It sounds like everyone loved El Campeon. A fair layout with great elevation changes and visually pleasing old-Florida golf holes. I wish it wasn't so far away.

Pink.

Day 2
Blue gets revenge winning 3 of the 4 points, mostly due to late round Pink collapses:

- Adam/Geoff blew a Dormie-3 lead to tie Ho/Brendan.
- Chandler/Danny blue a 2-up with 3 to play lead to tie Darren/Gorecki.
- Moostie/JW had a 2-up lead through 13 before losing the next 4 holes and ultimately losing the match.
- Dave/Katie decided to do the losing early and often, digging a 4-down hole and never climbing out of it.

The Rapture was tied 4-4 after Day 2.

Reviews of Las Colinas was that it's a decent course, with some really inconsistent holes. Clearly it was completely re-designed, mixing new holes with old ones, sprawled out to maximize housing. Not something worth driving across the state for... but a nice course nonetheless.

Blue.

Day 3
Winner take all, and basically every match was tight.

- Darren won 4 of the final 7 holes to tie Adam, who had the lead for most of the match. I found out today that Gorecki entered wrong scores for this match, but Darren got the historical record squared away.
- Dave struggled with OMG for the first 1/3rd of the match, finally wearing him out and winning on the 17th hole... which took 30+ minutes for them to complete.
- Reid finally took some deep breaths and calmed down on the back nine, playing some outstanding golf to beat Katie on the 17th hole.
- Chandler three-putted the 18th hole to make double bogey and tie Faz, who nearly spontaneously combusted on the 17th hole in anger. Not quite JW at the New Course... but pretty close.
- The new Zen-JW had a very enjoyable day, beating wallet-less Brendan on 17.
- Gary destroyed Tall Mike 5&4, allegedly because Tall Mike's putting was terrible. Gary remembers nothing of this match, nor JW's victory.
- Geoff fell apart on the 18th, chunking back-to-back approach shots to lose his match with Ho. However, Geoff shot a career low 88... and Ho, realizing this round wasn't going to count for his handicap, let go of his sandbags to shoot in the high 70s.
- Danny actually held his own for awhile against Casey, taking his match to the 16th hole before finally surrendering.

Blue Wins.

My take on Bella Collina remains the same: the course is mostly good (way better than what we have in Tampa), but the facilities outshine it. I'm glad you all got to see it.

Clermont
The houses were decent... definitely the way to go on these trips. Pretty sure everyone had fun sitting around, gambling, and talking shit. We got a solid group of guys, and one fun female, so hopefully everyone thinks we're getting a good value.

I say this every year... but in 2019 we're finally going to have a couple of people fail to qualify. Be sure to play as much as possible in the next 12 league events to give yourself the best chance. I've got a few ideas for next year's location, but my goal is to always keep it under $300 ($180 was the cheapest and $331 was the most expensive) for golf and lodging.

Pink Stinks.

Picks Results (1pt per Correct Pick; Max of 16)
Chandler - 9
Geoff - 7
Tall Mike - 7
JW - 6
Casey - 5

Board Meeting Items
I've added a couple of things to the Winter Board Meeting docket, where we actually vote on changing league rules:

- Gorecki is now basically making "grass angels" on the green to read putts... whispering to the blades of grass "Is this putt good?".... to which the grass (probably) replies: "If you wait, they will give it." He's also damaging the greens with his Ichabod Crane knees. Expect this to be outlawed by a local Club rule ASAP.

- Despite us agreeing in the pool on Saturday evening that "coaching" was allowed, Reid was really miffed at me telling Katie she was stroking on a hole... all while the entire rest of the league was reading putts and helping with strategy. I guess we now need to officially rule on what can and can't be said to someone during stroke and match play. Comment your opinion if you want your voice to be heard on the subject.

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We now enter the most important phase of our Club... the off-season. For any Club to be successful, you need breaks to remind your family of your existence. Augusta National is closed for over 4 months in the summer. We have so much in common with them!

We'll do a couple of exhibition matches. Perhaps the 2-man moving tees event, with the letter jacket bar night. Maybe a 3-club or 6-club challenge again. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

After the Winter Meeting, I'll update everyone on any changes to the 2019 rules.

Great year everyone... and even better Rapture!