2021 Rapture Course - Four Ball

The general area of Naples has about 90 golf courses, about five of which are public. A few are even "no calls... no solicitations... invite only" courses that don't have tee times and look amazing (if you can afford the membership and know the right people).

So I knew booking this years Rapture would be a struggle, but worth it if we land the right spots. The top course on my list was Talis Park, a private Club which I've played a couple of times (Gary and Darren have been there too). It's basically a flatter version of Bella Collina, but I think the course is much better (less tricked up).

It was also co-designed by Greg Norman and Pete Dye. I can't confirm this, but it feels like Norman did the front nine and Dye did the back nine. Completely different looks, and I recall thinking I just played two separate courses. It's odd, but not necessarily in a bad way.

I had to go through the father-in-law's real estate broker friend in order to get us a tee time. In typical private club fashion, we'll be playing Friday (Oct 8th) at 11am. $75+. I also have to pay for the entire group at once.

 

But don't worry — just like the IRS, I'm never done collecting. I still have yet to charge you the $50 for our Pay For Performance game (the $160 you paid me was just housing). So I'll collect that and Round 1 greens fees while we're down there.

 

One more course to go!

 

Par-3 13th hole.

2021 Rapture Draft Results

I woke up drunk thinking it was Sunday. Thanks to all who showed up last night.

 

Geoff's team is BLUE. Moosite's team is ORANGE.

 

1 - Melberg
2 - Chandler
3 - Dave
4 - Faz
5 - Reid
6 - Casey
7 - John
8 - Travis
9 - Ho

10 - Brendan
11 - Danny
12 - Gary
13 - Gorecki
14 - Darren

 

Round 1 - Talis Park - Four-Ball
1 - Faz / Travis vs. Dave / Brendan
2 - Melberg / Gorecki vs. Moostie / John
3 - Ho / Geoff vs. Casey / Darren
4 - Reid / Gary vs. Chandler / Danny

Round 2 - Vineyards (S) - Chapman (Alt-Shot)
1 - Ho / Gorecki vs. Danny / Darren

2 - Reid / Geoff vs. Moostie / Dave
3 - Gary / Faz vs. Chandler / Brendan
4 - Melberg / Travis vs. Casey / John

Round 3 - River Hall - Singles
1 - Gary vs. Darren
2 - Travis vs. Brendan
3 - Faz vs. Danny
4 - Gorecki vs. Chandler
5 - Geoff vs. John
6 - Ho vs. Casey
7 - Melberg vs. Dave
8 - Reid vs. Moostie

2021 Rapture Draft

We're holding the Rapture draft this Friday, August 20th, at Red Dog (aka: The Dog).

I'll be there around 8pm, maybe earlier depending on dinner. Attendance is by no means mandatory, or even important. In fact, you might find the draft anticlimactic and not worth negotiating/begging for permission to go out to a bar on a Friday night.

Tall Mike won't even show up until about 10pm (estimated... Tall Mike Time is difficult to calculate). And depending on how the Captains want to Captain, they may not even listen to your suggestions during the pairings creation.

But if you want to hang out at our unofficial Clubhouse — which is now somewhat of a college bar after UT kids discovered it during the 2020 "lockdown" — then I'll see you Friday. Significant others welcome.

For the Captains:

I'll bring a couple of "draft sheets" to help you keep everything straight. The quicker we get through the process of drafting and then creating your pairings for each round, the better.

2022 - 2023 Board of Directors Vote Results

Thanks to everyone for voting in a timely manner. With all 23 Members voting, the results are:

Faz - 22

John - 22

Geoff - 22

JW - 17

Gorecki - 9

I'll get with the new board about meeting very soon. If anyone has pressing issues you'd like discussed and voted on, now is the time to say something. Either here, or to a Board member. Especially if you have any thoughts on the elimination of "gimmie" putts. Or how much you dislike Dan. Or any new logo ideas.

Charity Golf Scramble

There is a Charity Golf Scramble for Shriners on Thursday, September 30th at Buckhorn Springs Golf and CC.   It will have your typical charity goodies: Free polo and welcome bag, all the booze, maybe cigars and light breakfast, and usually a buffet dinner, and silent auction.  Pretty care free environment.  It starts at 12:30 but registration will be a few hours before that.  

Rease, Troy + 1, and I have a team already.  Anyone else want to join or create a team?  Feel Free to sign up directly or reach out to me.  Prices go up September 14th.  It is $500 for a foursome right now ($125 each).

site to register: Egypt Shrine Temple Doug Cox Memorial Golf Tournament

Their details:

Early Registration fee of $150 per person or $500 per foursome ends September 14, 2021, so don't delay. Registration anytime on September 14, 2020 through the day of event will be $175.00 per player or $650 per foursome.

The Egypt Temple Shine is proud to present the annual Illustrious Doug Cox Memorial Golf Tournament, to be held on Thursday September 30, 2021, at Buckhorn Springs Golf and Country Club. Join us for a day of great fun as we host a four-man scramble on one of Tampa's finest golf courses. 

Registration is per player, and includes the following:

All Green Fees
Range Balls
Golf Shirt and Welcome Gift Bag
Tee Gifts
Water / Soda / Beer
Post Play Dinner
Awards Ceremony

Each team will consist of 4 players, shotgun start at 12:30 pm.

We will also host a Silent Auction and Putting Contest at this event!

PROCEEDS ARE FOR THE BENEFIT OF EGYPT SHRINERS.

Golf Course Flyover Video Brandon FL | Buckhorn Springs

2021 Rapture Course - Singles

Got our first Rapture course reserved.

River Hall Country Club, located in Alva about an hour north of our AirBnBs (on our way back to Tampa). We'll be playing our final round — Singles — starting at 10:18am, for $59ish.

This is a Davis Love III design, built in 2007. I have never played one of his courses, and this looks to be a high-handicappers dream. Wide open off the tee, not long by any means, with large greens. You can watch a flyover of each hole here (pro tip: turn off your sound and set the speed to 2x):

However... that shitty drone footage doesn't do a good job with the elevation changes of greens and fairway ridges. For example, the par-3 16th green looks flat and surrounded by bunkers. From the ground it looks like this:

Clearly two distinct tiers and probably a 4-6 foot drop off the back into sand. It'll probably play a lot like the original Esplanade in Lakewood Ranch... but I'm just guessing. I'm not going to see this course before we get there.

More to come later!

2021 Rapture Draft

Draft will be held at Red Dog, on Friday August 20th. I'll be there around 8pm if anyone wants to hang out like we used to. Whenever Moostie finally makes it out, we'll hold the draft and the pairings reveals.

I've received housing payment from all 16 participants:

1 - Geoff (Captain)

2 - Moostie (Captain)

3 - Dave

4 - Brendan

5 - Melberg

6 - Gorecki

7 - Casey

8 - Chandler

9 - Ho

10 - Reid

11 - Darren

12 - John

13 - Gary

14 - Faz

15 - Danny

16 - Travis

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Alternates:

1 - Billy

2 - Topor

 

If anyone bails after being selected, we will attempt to replace them with the next alternate. If no alternates are available... or if we run out of alternates... then the Captain can try to convince one of the 5 Members who are OUT to attend. We will not fill spots with non-Members.

 

I'm starting to work on booking us courses, but remember that we play Friday, Saturday AND Sunday (October 8th, 9th and 10th). Get your PTO in now if you need to. I'd also recommend taking a half-day on Thursday the 7th to travel down to Naples.

 

Here are some Faz Stats from last season, which the Captains may find useful. Names in yellow are people who played in less than 5 events:

 

Updating the Losing Streak Leaderboard

 As the season has ended, it's a time to reflect upon our accomplishments and failures and learn where we can go from here. We should all congratulate Travis on a great first season and chide Billy for choking so terribly at the end. We have a new Katie and a new Geoff, apparently. As many of you know, however, it isn't this wins that interest this club member. Adhering strictly to Reese Bobby's drug addled piece of wisdom, "if you ain't first, you're last," and therefore everyone who didn't win the last event is now on a losing streak. Congrats to Gorecki on being the only current winner in the club.

Most of the club loses every tournament, but only a select few can do so prodigiously. Some years ago, Reid lost a hefty 36 tournaments in a row. More recently, Mike Ho lost a staggering 40 events in a row. None of these compare to the 5-year drought of yours truly, however, with a mind-numbing 72 losses in a row. I must live with my scarlet L until a poor soul finally takes the mantle from me. My one and only current hope is non other than fellow board member Chris Fazioli, currently in the midst of a 3+ year drought spanning 49 events played without a win.

If he somehow gets within 9 losses by the end of Summer '22, I'll buy champagne in anticipation of popping the bottles sometime in late Spring '23. So, once again, here's to anyone other than Faz winning tournaments until Summer '23.

Grid of Losers:

 

Board of Directors: 2022 - 2023

It's time to vote in our rotating Board of Directors seats for the next two years.

For the new people... or the old people who never pay attention... you can find a link to the current By-Laws at the top of the "Leadership" page of this blog. While the Chairman position remains unchanged (he's just a puppet anyway), we do require all other Board seats to go through an election process.

First thing we need is volunteers. Your obligation as a Board member would include (but not limited to):

• Attending a couple of in-person dinners/meetings per year
• Keeping track of items/issues you've heard from other Members for discussion
• Voting on Club policies & playing rules
• Contributing to the resolution of any spontaneous issues that arise, such as rain-outs
• This means you have to respond to texts in a timely manner, and should eliminate most of you from consideration
  
• Approving potential new Members (if space is available)

The Board is something we need so our Chairman can pass blame. It's not really glamorous. The other day I was asked by a 3+ year Member: "who's actually on the Board?"  [Chandler, Faz, John, Gary, JW]

People don't know, nor care, because our operation is pretty smooth. Off the top of my head, the biggest thing the next Board will vote on is the elimination of "gimmie" putts. Riveting stuff.

If you've played in at least 20 events (which is everyone except the four most recent Members), make a comment to be on the ballot.

 

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In related "Board" news, I received a tip that Big John — Supreme Allied Commander of the Boozer's Golf Review — unilaterally fired the entire BGR Board of Directors. He subsequently filled the vacancies with Adam, Troy, and Billy.

If this report can be verified, it's potentially very exciting news as the replacements are much more knowledgeable about booze and hanging out than the previous Board. Perhaps the new iteration can stop this once celebrated group from "fading into bolivian." Potentially returning the BGR to its Glory Days (an actual bar) instead of being chained to a radiator in the house next to a glory hole to the outside world.

Story developing.

FBGC Masters - Summer 2021 Recap

We were unable to recreate the experience of Golf Utopia on Sunday, as scoring at ChampionsGate Country Club failed to break any records. It wasn't due to conditioning — the course was in great shape, especially for the summer. But the magic was gone, replaced by the general challenge and frustration of golf.

Perhaps it was slightly windier than in 2016. This definitely played a factor in the long par-3s, and turned all but the final par-5 into three-shot holes. But the distances of those holes hasn't changed, and we did a much better job navigating them five years ago.

It was scorching hot, and the 4:36 pace set by the non-golfers in front of our first group didn't help. However, the course was dry and we avoided the typical afternoon Orlando lightning storms, so I can't imagine heat alone contributed to a 9.2 average net stroke increase between events (adjusted for the new handicap system, which added about 2 strokes to everyone's score).

The fairways were cut noticeably narrower than in years past. It was laughable on some holes, with 15-yard wide strips of short grass. Only two of the four groups had a long drive winner, and Troy earned his by barely reaching the fairway. The rough was hardly a hindrance, however, and some players probably preferred the fluffier lies.

The last factor I can think of, was the seemingly infinite amount of identical rental homes and quadriplexs built along the course. While this didn't alter the vast width, it did visually make an impact. Some of the views on the front nine were comical. Holes were 100 yards wide, but the endless stucco boxes acted as golf ball magnets.

All those things combined, ChampionsGate Country Club is no longer the easiest most fun course we play. That title now belongs to the Commander Course at Lakewood National.

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Gorecki led the way with an unbelievable start to his round, shooting +4 (gross!) on his first eight holes. I believe he was -8 (net) at this point, before succumbing to the 150-yard carry off the 9th tee. Despite possessing six clubs in his bag that can easily clear the pond... he mentally imploded leading to an unnatural max 10.

 

His back nine was average, shooting even par (net) and coasting to his first win of the season. Casey and Faz faltered early on the back, eliminating any real chance of chasing down the leader on their own.

 

The thrill of victory didn't stop the complaints, as Gorecki lamented that he should have been allowed to play the 5,744 yard "Member" tees. Never mind the US Senior Women's Open was currently being contested on a course 300 yards longer, with an 82 year old woman shooting better than her age. Nope... Gorecki wanted the title, the Club Credit, and less yardage than someone born in 1939. This is why Mike doesn't have nice things. Like friends.

Billy — the only player in the field capable of winning the Cup — was twice near the lead. Both times he carded a 9, going with a "Warren Sapp" on the 16th and 17th holes to fall to DFL. If those three holes were bogeys, he'd tie for the victory. While that still wouldn't etch his name into history, it would have been pretty exciting down the stretch. Not only were those blow-ups costly to Billy's championship dreams, but his handicap actually took the round and dropped half a point after the ESC adjustment!

As expected, Travis won the Summer season, and becomes our 10th different Champion.

Great season everyone. It was a lot of fun, and we'll start up again in January 2022.

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I'll have a handful of updates this week, as we try to lock down the Rapture Draft... Rapture courses... new Board of Directors... and other off-season events. Stay tuned, and... you know... don't be afraid to use this blog to organize your own shit.