How to Win a Championship

It's been over a year and a half since we added a new member to the Club. So as our only 4x Champion, here are my keys to victory which might help Melberg this season... or any of you other fools who can't seem to force your way into the Champions Dinner.

Hey... you get the #content you deserve when I'm the only one making posts!

1. Start Your Own League - This is the easiest path to victory. Just take the 6 or so shitty golfers you hang out with, and put together a season. Only pick courses you excel at, and be sure to make rules that will give you an unfair, but undetectable, advantage. You'll be sitting alone at the Champions Dinner before you know it.
2. Show Up - You can't rack up points if you don't play. With only 18 official events per year, you should set the expectations with the WAGs early (and re-calibrate often). But don't think missing a tournament (or two) is automatically ruining your chances. The eventual Champion has only played in all events 6 out of 16 seasons. However, never has anyone won missing three (tree?) tournaments.
3. Match Play Better - Our Match Play event is set up like "position night" in bowling leagues. Meaning... you're playing against someone next to you in the standings, and it's a great way to get some separation. The 100 points for winning a match are almost a necessity to get your name on the Cup. Only twice in league history has the season Champion lost their match (three times they didn't attend the event).
4. Release the Sand - Champions Katie, Casey and Darren dropped their handicap indexes 4.5, 1.5 and 2.0 during their respective Championship seasons in 2017 and 2018. They were trash at the beginning, and figured out how to improve along the way. Unfortunately, this tip is of no use to Melberg and his 6 handicap.
5. Give Less - There's no data we can use to support this theory... but not many people win events in my group. This could be because I'm really annoying. But it's more likely that I'm stingy with "gimmies." If only ONE person in the group says you have to putt... then you have to putt. The trick is to loudly announce it as soon as the ball stops rolling. I'd say I'm concerned with protecting the field, but every extra stroke your opponents take can lead to increased points for yourself. Or increased pitchers of beer after the round. Basically, I enjoy metaphorically brewing my own pitchers of Bud Light, at the expense of your shitty putting. Gary might have 5 Championships by now if he wasn't so generous.

Hopefully this seasons' Champion can look back and credit this post for their success.

----------------------------------

Other News:

- The forecast for Sunday looks terrible. However, it's not cold-front related so the accuracy is suspect. If the radar looks bad, your Board members will vote on what to do early Sunday morning (8am-ish). Our track record for rainouts is actually quite amazing. I can only think of four times we've had to quit mid-round (Northdale 2013, Lex Oaks 2014, Pebble Creek 2017, Grasslands 2019). So plan to play until you get a text from us telling you to stay home.

- Random Pairings will be live on twitter (@fortbrookegc) at 9pm tonight. I think. If you don't use that platform... you really aren't missing out.

- Later this week we're going to go into a deep dive in the Mike vs. Darryl rivalry. Specifically, the struggle of a 50+ year old man to beat his 90+ year old father straight-up.