Summer 2020 Schedule (Tentative)

Here's the Summer schedule... most of it is set in stone.

Couple of things to note:

1) Rapture is going to be pushed to September or October... the later the better... to help reduce the chance of rain and oppressive heat.

2) Every year we play on the British Open, we seem to regret it. So right now I have us taking the day off to party and watch morning golf. I might change my mind on this.

Skins Game - Spring 2020 Recap

Big John re-discovered his driver swing... for like the 15th time in his golfing career. Which was essential on a long, soft course like Dunedin GC. It also helps he carded 2 sandies, and didn't really have a blow-up until the final hole. This is John's 4th event in a row finishing in the top 4.

Faz ended up losing by one, despite putting well enough to win. There just wasn't room for a lot of mistakes out there, and a poor opening tee shot was apparently all it took.

Gary, like most of the league, had the wheels fall off on the back nine — slipping to 3rd but maintaining the top spot on the season leader board. Speaking of wheels falling of... shout-out to "Back Nine Geoff" for shooting 42 - 57.

Dunedin was as frustrating as I remembered... debuting at #3 on our course difficulty rankings. As everyone pointed out, it was a little disappointing the areas around the greens were in bad shape. Regardless, it's always nice to play something different. And hopefully we can continue to play some "new" places in 2020.

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Southern Hills this week. 10:30am tee time, and rate of about $70 after tax.

See you up there.

Boozer's Golf Review Volume 24 - Dunedin Golf Club

Good day, faithful BGR readers. We had a great day of golf Sunday at the Skins Game and a few FBGC members got some practice for the Hangover Invitational after celebrating January 11th a little too hard. Folks getting a little loose with the wine on Saturday led to some good Sunday scores. For a little bit, at least. As a winner of two Hangover Invitationals, I can tell you that high performance on the course for all 18 holes requires a delicate balance of cocktails throughout the day. Geoff attempted to sober up during the day. Bold strategy, Geoff. It appeared to be working until he teetered on 11 and completely fell off the beam on 14 and 15. So it goes. The BGR would have recommended picking up a few beers at the turn, par streak be damned. Hopefully this is a lesson learned for all of us.

You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning

Dunedin Golf Club took full advantage of being a private club and was as ready to serve as Pat Tillman after 9/11 (RIP). Clubhouse was open in the morning and the cart lady was on the course. Promising start for the review. 

Thrifty Boozing Conditions

While I was pulling my clubs out of the truck, a guy dropped off a cart for me. Hello invitation to bring my own booze. I'm pretty sure I could have brought a dead hooker cooler out on the course, but I didn't try as I had only brought bag bourbon to mix with my iced coffee for the beginning of the round. Still, I think the warning signs about only being allowed to consume alcohol purchased from the course were the most protest you'd get about bringing your own. 

They served the usual suspects of domestics in 12 oz cans at 6 for $20. Typical golf course pricing, but probably worth bringing at least a few of your own instead of shelling out that cash once or twice. Cart pricing for liquor was $9 per mini bottle. At the turn, one group member ordered a double and was charged $13.50 in the clubhouse. On the course it was $18 for the same drink. The importance of bag bourbon has rarely been so apparent. Cokes were $2.50. 

On Course Service

While the carts didn't come with a cooler, the cart lady had some and that made the 6 pack purchases go down a little smoother. The lady got around the course quickly and ran the credit card immediately. She gave us the old "I just work here" when we told her about the discrepancy in liquor pricing between the course and the clubhouse, and honestly I admired that. She was pretty honest about her thoughts about how much the liquor is. I don't think I could have been more transparent in my intentions to drink my own booze when Brendan suggested buying just a coke instead of the two overpriced airplane bottles with the same liquid I already had in my golf bag, but the cart lady was more than happy to oblige. All in all, we had a good experience with the on course service. Perhaps she had a new lease on life after Dave almost killed her on the first hole, too.

Pissability

Not great. Some parts of the course were a lot friendlier than others, but most of the holes were on top of each other or alongside roadways and businesses. There were a couple bathrooms out there. One was around the 4th hole in a particularly cramped part of the course, too, so that assuages the lack of tucked away spots a bit. Still, better to not be overly hydrated out there.

Clubhouse Experience

In this season of the pitcher, one could probably do worse than a $13 pitcher after tax and tip. Probably would have been good if I could have gotten off the deadbeat list there instead of Southern Hills on Sunday, but such is life. Service was good despite the heavy crowd, and the food received decent reviews. Being so close to downtown Dunedin provides better hangout options, though. Recommended to skip the clubhouse post-round and go have fun elsewhere unless you want to settle for just okay.

Overall

Early service, ease of BYOB, and quick cart lady with coolers provide a solid foundation. Liquor pricing gives it a ding and a pedestrian clubhouse keeps it from maximizing potential. Pissability brings it down a bit more. We generally had a meh impression on the day, too. Overall, we'll split the 6-pack two ways and give them 3 ice cold beers. That'll be $10 plus tip. Just Venmo me.

FBGC Open

Apparently the economy is doing too well.

Southern Hills this weekend can't get us out until 1pm due to another outing. They also raised their guest rates to $70.

Gary called to complain and they went down to $65.

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Southern Hills can now miraculously get us out at 10:30am on Sunday.

We should have a couple spots open.

MLK Golf

Got 8 spots open for the somewhat newly rebranded Moccasin Wallow Golf Club. 10am on Monday, January 20th

In so far:
Chandler
Gary
Faz
Reid
Geoff
Danny

Who else wants to join?

Fort Brooke Golfers Club

The only thing more embarrassing than knowing the history of our now retired Club name, was trying to explain it (or some other made up story) to outsiders.

We're long overdue for a permanent change.

Back in December of 2018, I asked everyone for rebranding suggestions. The results were predictably terrible. We are not a Club of creatives — as confirmed by all the great #content that you people fail to provide (with obvious exception of the occasional BGR).

For a year I weighed the options, and decided it's time to just pull the trigger on something with a decent backstory. We couldn't go into 2020 with the Donkey looking over our shoulders.

My requirements were a Club name that is: unique, related to our location, official and legitimate sounding, not embarrassing to explain, and easily branded with a simple and recognizable logo.

Change is always going to be weird — at first. After re-naming our "Ryder Cup" event to the "Rapture," JW wasn't impressed. But it didn't take long for us to embrace it as the best golf weekend of the year. I'm truly going to miss The Moses when Gary finally wins him this year.

Anyway... last Board Meeting I informed everyone the decision was made: Fort Brooke Golfers Club.

What the Hell is Fort Brooke?

The simple answer is: Tampa. The entire American settlement of this area was due to Fort Brooke — a small outpost established after the US acquired Florida from Spain.

Colonel George Mercer Brooke was tasked with establishing a military presence in Tampa Bay to curtail illegal activity on the Gulf coast. The collection of buildings were constructed in 1824, and stretched from the current Tampa Convention Center all the way past the Amalie Arena.

1838 map of Fort Brooke

Fort Brooke boundary in blue & green. The 1852 town of Tampa in red.

During the Civil war, it was a small Confederate camp until eventually bombarded and captured by Union forces. And in the Reconstruction era, it served as a staging area for troops stationed down in Key West during Yellow Fever outbreaks.

Ultimately the fort was no longer needed and decommissioned in 1883 — lost forever to the expanding city of Tampa.

Ownership of the land itself was viciously contested in courts for 21 years, involving all the big names you'll find on our streets and neighborhoods: Henderson, Sparkman, McKay, Ybor, Chamberlain, etc.

The town of Tampa wanted it for schools and a public park, while others realized the value for industry. What we now know as Downtown Tampa began as one of the most convoluted stories I've ever come across, with various government agencies (both local and national) overturning previous decisions... until it reached the United States Supreme Court in 1904.

And in November of 2018, the new Water Street project was still uncovering graves from the various Fort Brooke cemeteries.

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There's nothing more distinguished than representing the heart and inception of our great city. So here's to many more years of the FBGC fortifying the region (we've been at this 9 years already!). With any luck, one day we might also have a physical clubhouse to call home.

Goodbye, DPT Donkey. And I'll see the rest of you jackasses on the course.





*We got our graphics guy working on the logo... at which point we'll get some official Members merch created.

Boozer's Golf Review Volume 23 - Lexington Oaks

Opening Day!! Everyone showed up early for this rather chilly event. Attendance was high and the BGR will take most of the credit for this after such a successful scouting round 4 weeks ago. Thank you to all that showed for our inaugural event. Course of the week is Lexington Oaks.

You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning.

Lexington Oaks is pretty much a glorified muni, but somehow has a "membership" group which would insinuate it is private. This is a course that thinks of itself as private, but its almost a course you can call public. So I'm going to make a ruling on this right now. If you can't sell booze before the county allows it, then you aren't private. Stop selling punch cards to d'bags that own their own carts and realize you are the dump you are. Needless to say no early booze.

Thrifty boozing conditions

Despite its haughty nature Lexington Oaks is quite easy on the wallet. You could easily drive your cart out to the parking lot and load up a pony keg or purchase beers at the turn for $15 a 6 pack or buy pitchers in the clubhouse for $10. The BGR appreciates the thrifty boozing conditions perhaps more than any other course feature. We have yet to establish a "shot of the week" measure this season and Darren's boozing got the better of him before the season started so we have no reports on liquor costs.

On course service

Nearly every time I have played this course the cart girl roles up mid-swing on number one and walks around her cart like a carnival caller selling her wares:

                                "I have candy, sandwiches, shots, beers, Bloody Mary's..."

Today I was spared the annoyance, but was left dry on the course. There was no cart girl, there was no halfway house, there was nothing but tears and anger. I don't believe we have rated this course to date (Dear Leader please let me know if I am incorrect), but the ranking will be hindered by this.

Pissability

With this type of course, houses wall to wall, you would expect some difficulty, but avast I was able to potty at my convenience without any granny heckling or shy bladder issues. That's not to say they weren't watching, but no one seemed to care. There are pee stations about every 4 holes., but you must remember their infallible door code of "1-2-3-4" to get in.

Clubhouse experience

The Golden Oldies Mixed Doubles crowd teed off the back at 8:15 and weren't stuck behind Pasco's finest, like we were, all day, yet they still managed to take up 8 of the 12 tables in the clubhouse when we arrived at 1:45. This afforded "Did Reid Leave" Reid the excuse to bounce after some soccer talk with Adam, but allowed BGR member Brian Buchert to show some true brilliance by suggesting "lets just sit on the patio." The service was somewhat chaotic, yet I think everyone, except Gorecki, was pleased and most learned the need for second language. We managed to work off 8 of the record breaking, last season tying 13 pitchers earned today. I believe 5 of those were due to the new handicapping system, but I believe Our Dear Leader will further expound upon that.

Overall

Not having a cart girl on the course when it was that packed and slow is just dumb from a financial standpoint. I guess the restaurant was just taken over by new owners, and if they can't get a girl on the course, then the BGR can't give them a stamp of approval. Additionally, when one of our golfers attempted to buy a 6 pack special in the clubhouse at the turn the attendant insisted that only the cart girl offered that, yet not but one group before was that very 6 pack special was offered in the restaurant. Its hard to make sense of this course. Current pricing and historical cart girl performance would be a great combo, but at the current moment we can't offer up any better than 2 beers for Lexington Oaks.

The Classic - Spring 2020 Recap

The Lexington Oaks Massacre

Alright, so what happened?

• cold, windy day
• firm greens (newly re-built last summer)
• wet course (makes it play longer)
• super soft around greens (difficult to chip and run ball up)

There you go. If you can't land the ball on the green, and you can't land it short of the green, it's going to cause some big numbers. Not to mention Lexington has never been an easy ("fun") course. The leader board looks like a nightmare, but the guys who hit the ball the best were at the top.

I imagine the 13 pitchers in one day was a record. Five of them were due to the new USGA Course Handicap Calculation change. The double pitchers would have been double pitchers regardless.

While Faz made the only par on the 10 and 11... and Buchert the only par on 17 (super impressive)... Danny made the only par on #1, which is ridiculous and set the tone for the rest of the day.

56% of the field failed to make more than 2 pars or better. Also ridiculous.

The deadbeat list is only as good as what is told to me, and what I remember. So if you see something, say something. I'm fine with us having some pitchers owed and spreading them out at other events where the scores are better. But don't let it get out of control.

Anyway, that was entertaining. Good to be back.

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Next week we're going to Dunedin Golf Club for the first time in our stroke-play history.

It's an old Donald Ross design built in 1927. The Senior PGA Championship played there from 1945-1962, so it has a ton of old memorabilia on site.

Tee time is 9:30am (I think... booked it in the parking lot after a few beers... I'll confirm later). And cost is $50ish. Scorecard is here. Everyone is on WHITES unless you tell me otherwise.

We only have 16 spots, with 14 people confirmed.

See you then.

2020 PGA Fantasy Pool

Pool is now accepting entries.

$50 and selection sheet must be IN by 1/20/20.

Go here for the rules.

Payments and selections sent to me. Let me know if you'd rather fill it out on Excel. Good luck.

Spring 2020 - Week 1

We're all booked for the first week of the new season.

I really wanted to go to a specific course in Pinellas, but I encountered a whole new low of incompetence in the golf industry.

So we'll maybe push that off a week — assuming my patience returns. We're instead booked at Lexington Oaks at 9am (site of the BGR's first tournament).

Rate is $38 after tax. Range balls not included... but it's so early, most of you people won't have time to hit them anyway.


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Our 2020 Fantasy Golf Pool is going to be released soon. You'll only have a couple of weeks to enter. Every year I post it... and every year someone tells me they didn't see it.

When you see something... get on it. Late entries will be rejected.

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 See you all THIS Sunday.

End of the Off Season

Two weeks out, and we got a few lazy / deadbeat members to discuss.

Dave and Danny, still need to fill out their registration form. I'll be booking the first week very soon, and will assume any blanks or ??? are not attending.

And the following people have yet to pay league dues:

Danny - $37
Katie - $40
Ho - $110
Reid - $63
Troy - $20

Failure to pay before teeing off in any event results in a DQ. Every DQ makes my chances of winning improve. So while I'm all for it, it's probably better to open up your favorite Millennial payment app and send over some of that money you pretend to make.

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In other news... just got word that the Bayou Club is going to get us on for $65 plus tax. It's a private Tom Fazio design that I've been trying to take us to for a few years — but could never make it work due to their renovation and maintenance schedules.

It's also where Geoff got married.

Current plan is to play it for the DPT Open (week 3).

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I've also been in contact with the USGA, attempting to get us on their internal computation platform. It might happen... hopefully... but it seems they're really going to decimate their list of Directly Authorized Clubs.

Type 2 Clubs (like ours) are about to find themselves "unofficial" with very few options. There's a chance we can change that. But regardless, expect our own modified handicaps to be used for all of next season.

2020 Handicaps - What's the Deal?

As you may have heard, handicaps are changing for 2020. We'll officially no longer be... official... since we won't be tied into the new USGA system/database.

The goal is to get "official" at some point, but in the meantime we're going rogue!

It's gonna be nuts.

I'll implement as many of the changes as possible, and we should ultimately be good enough for government work.

Bottom line: in our tournaments you're going to get a number... you're going to play to that number... and you're going to like it. Most of you can stop reading now.

Anyone who wants to know how the sausage is going to be made, continue below:

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 3.1(a) now states that when establishing a handicap, the max score you can take is par + 5. Coincidentally, this is what our Board of Directors implemented over a year ago.

Action: Great job voting in a Board that's ahead of the times. Again, this only applies to handicap establishment. Once you have an Index, you get to deal with the bullshit in the next section.

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 3.1(b) changes your max allowed for handicap reporting. While it was based on the ESC grid, the new number is "net double bogey".

Action: Your Club Chairman handles this adjustment after each tournament round. It's on YOU to report your adjusted scores correctly during non-tournament rounds. This requires you to look at the hole-handicaps on the scorecard and decide if you made worse than "net double bogey," and then adjust accordingly. It's a huge pain in the ass. And most of you probably weren't reporting your ESC rounds anyway. We'll hammer this more later once next season has started.

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 4.1 says you must submit your rounds IMMEDIATELY after play. This is due to your Handicap Index now changing DAILY, instead of BI-MONTHLY (Rule 5.4).

Action: We are NOT going to change how often your "DPT/FBGC Index" is updated. Ain't nobody got time for that... until we're on an automated platform. So for now, two updates a month per usual.

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 5.2(a) changes how many rounds are used in your Index calculation. Currently, it uses the average of your best 10 of previous 20 differentials, with a 4% reduction. The NEW RULE uses the average of your best eight differentials of the previous 20 (with no additional reduction).

Action: We'll be able to implement this change, and for most people it'll only change your Index a few tenths. If you have a wide spread of scores, it'll probably lower you down a point. And a the super high handicaps might actually gain points since the 4% reduction was pretty large up in the bad golfer stratosphere.

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 5.3 increases the maximum allowed Index to 54.0.

Action: I mean... sure. But if you ever sniff a number that high... you probably shouldn't be playing golf for score/points/money.

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 5.6 applies extra adjustments to your Index based on "playing conditions." The process requires crowd-sourcing scores at a specific course for a specific day, and determining if the reported scores are out of whack.

Action: It's impossible for us to implement this change. Also, it's not going to change your differential very often. The BEST thing this will do is alert the USGA when a course is incorrectly rated (ie: players consistently reporting low net scores like at ChampionsGate CC). How quickly that causes a course to pay their own money for a re-rating is yet to be seen. They're only required to do it once every 10 years unless there are major architectural changes.

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 5.8 determines how HIGH your Index can increase over a 12-month period. It compares every revision to your LOWEST Index in the last year. That Index can never increase more than 5 points. And there's a soft-cap that slows any increase after it reaches 3 points above your "lowest index" in the previous 12-months.

Action: This was a huge pain in the ass, but I got it implemented. I don't see the "hard cap" coming into play very often... but starting in January 2020... Gary and John are already in the "soft cap" zone. Sandbaggers!

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 5.9 deals with exceptional scores. If you ever record a round where the calculated differential is 7+ lower than your Index... you get a -1 point reduction in your previous 20 round differentials. If you ever record a round 10+ lower... it's a -2 point reduction. And if you ever do it more than once, the application is cumulative. This is the ultimate sandbagger penalty, and it WOULD affect some of us from time to time. Like when Adam shot an 85 at Buffalo Creek despite having a 21.8 Index (he won by 8 strokes).

Action: A complete nightmare using the duct-tape that makes up this blog. But for the most part, we're ready to roll on this.

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New Rule: Handicap Rule 6.1 changes how Course Handicaps are calculated. Currently, an extra calculation is only done if players are on DIFFERENT TEES. This is something we weren't doing correctly in our early existence... and then ultimately figured out when we started allowing you to pick your own tee boxes. Turns out, the USGA is tired of people ignoring this extra step (Darryl). So now... YOU HAVE TO APPLY IT TO EVERY TEE BOX ALL THE TIME!

Good luck explaining how to do this to the masses. Anyway...

It causes a few things... 1) par now matters, since that's the basis for the adjustment 2) your Course Handicap for any given day is definitely going to be different than before.

The net result won't affect our Club events in terms of where you will finish on the leader board. But it WILL cause more bad pitchers to be purchased, since most of us have rightfully embraced the "tee it forward" initiative. The tees that are "correct" for us are usually easy for Scratch Golfers, which is the basis for the Course Rating.

Action: Rounds that were net +8 or +9 are now going to be in the Pitcher Zone. Faz will be able to do average pitchers per round comparison, but if we continue to rack up "owed pitchers" expect the Board to take action against the deadbeats.

Inaugural BGR 2-person Scramble

Hello loyal readers! We are back after an offseason of football, family, and not enough booze golf. With bowl season and the next DPT (anxiously awaiting the official name change and logo announcement) season just around the corner, the BGR wanted to get some friends and family together for a fun event doing what we love: golf and booze.

After uncounted hours of planning, we were set for a 10-person field at Lexington Oaks on Sunday the 8th of December. Brendan spent the night before concentrating orange juice so everyone could get their vitamin C in when they arrived at the course. Aside from the OJ, the Martha Stewart-esque goody bags included a shot of fireball to be used in case of a mulligan emergency and a beer for each booze golfer celebrant. Wonderful job, Brendan.

Drink in case of two shanked drives.

The play itself was inspired, with all groups putting in some great work on the day. Pairings were made by handicaps, lowest with highest, second lowest with second highest, and so on and we ended up with the following:

• Chandler and Dub (-31.8 combined handicap)
• Faz and Brendan (-31.3)
• Ho and Ben (-31.8)
• Gary and Crum (-31.2)
• Big John and Darren (-30.9)

The official pairings sheet raw data.

No strokes given as the selected teams should have been relatively even. May the best golfers on the day win the whole pot. At least that was the plan until Chandler the cowardly sandhill crane chimed in to suggest second place gets their money back. So the pot was set: $80 to the winning team and $20 to the first losers. On to the event!

With 5 groups of 2-person teams, the pairings would be tough to manage. There was a convoluted plan to have groups switch between twosomes and foursomes during the round, but with the lead group waiting on each holes we decided to go with a six-some in there instead. Despite some yelling from the ranger, the six-some idea finished the day and fun was had by all, but mostly the group traveling with a papoose for the day.

The Brendan-Faz combo had to be told numerous times that you must take the fireball before the mulligan. I don't think a Patrick Reed-Billy Mayfair pairing would have bitched as much about not being able to take "provisional mulligans." They were solidly in contention until the Fireball blew up their round on the 12th green when a 5-foot putt just didn't want to go in for them. After that the John-Darren combo joined with the Brendan-Faz and Chandler-Dub teams in the lead six-some and got to witness the glory that was the Chandler-Dub victory lap around the field. Putts were going in from all over the greens for the heroes of the day and victory was never in doubt after the birdie on 13 from Chandler's mulligan 9-iron sticking 10-feet away and Dub draining the plinko style putt. It was a veritable clinic and the only sad part is that not all five groups were able to witness such brilliant play. John and Darren finished a valiant second place. It was hard to see the other two groups from so far out in front, but I'm sure they had fun, too.

Your inaugural BGR 2-person Scramble Participants! We even took the time to pose for a group photo.

While some played on and others went to continue the booze fun with lunch at Winghouse, we will all remember forever the Inaugaral BGR 2-person Scramble. Thanks to everyone who participated and those who put it together. Looking forward to the next BGR event. Course ratings still to come after incomplete data, but suffice it to say, it's not too tough to sneak stuff on out there.

BGR Update

 Let’s put a stop to the rumors, yes it’s happening!

Date: Sunday, December 8th

Time: 9:30 AM

Course: Lexington Oaks

Two man scramble format.

We will randomly generate parings. 

Bring $10 winning team take all.

Please reconfirm your attendance.

Words from the Commish

As of right now, the following people owe club dues:

Adam - $35
Danny -  $37
Katie - $40
Ho - $110
Reid - $53
Troy - $20

We start back up in 5 weeks so get those submitted.

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10 of you need to fill out your registration for the next season. I might lock that down 2 weeks out, depending on where we play, so claim a spot if you're in Week 1.

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Irish Dave requests a Red Dog gathering on Saturday, December 14th. Be there if you'd like to partake in our Club's social obligations. 7pm or so.

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The entire Blue Team from the 2019 Rapture has been awarded this year's "Pain Stewart Award" [sic].

Not the one given to someone whose "values align with the character, charity and sportsmanship that Payne Stewart showed." But the award for horrifically crashing and burning.