Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Silver Turns Gold!

Yogi Berra, a one-time famous catcher for the New York Yankees and baseball Hall of Famer once said, "It ain't over 'til it's over". Someone else also said, [it might have been Yogi - he's had more than a few beauties to his credit] "It ain't over until the fat lady sings". Well men, the fat lady has hit the high note and she's left the building headed for Weightwatchers. The curtain has come down and the sun has set on this year's Men's Night. After 14 events each Wednesday starting way back on May 23^rd, the dust has finally settled and we have a winner: Team Sleeman Silver Creek!

Going into the final Men's Night this past Wednesday, it was mathematically possible that on participation points alone the Silver Creek squad could hang on to their first place standing by everyone on the team just showing up, kicking the ball around nine holes and handing in a score. Well, not only did they show up, they brought their best game with them! Bob Skura and George Wilson teed off at the crack of dawn [Bob had a tournament out of town later in the morning and George, the team player that he is, elected to keep him company for nine holes to make it official]. Bob posted a gross score of 32 and George a net of 35!! Dedication at this high level to any team is rare indeed. The next 3 batters for the Silver Creek team also posted pretty good scores and the team jumped on the board early with a 175. Not bad! Over the course of the day they whittled that down to 169 thanks to some more great golf by Bill Pettigrew, Dean Elliot and Richard Humphrey. They ended up whipping the Original Dark squad by a whopping 20 points to finish in first place overall by a very comfortable margin. Hey guys, you didn't have to get mad!

Finishing 2^nd and 3^rd respectively after a tight battle right down to the last putt on Wednesday were teams Sleeman Honey Brown and Sleeman Amber respectively. Coming in 4^th and earning a hearty hand-clasp for their efforts was team Sleeman Cream Ale, just one point out of the running. Lads, you have our utmost sympathy.

For all those teams that finished in the bottom half and also out of the money, you can always 'promise to do better next week' er, make that next year. And speaking of that, next season hopefully we'll be able to boost overall participation and have more teams with more players. In fact, we'd like to get every male club member onto a Men's Night team so they can look forward to playing every Wednesday and spend some quality time on the clubhouse deck or in front of their computer cheering on their teammates. Now that we know how this works, we can plan on adding some other features to make it even more fun. 

As was stated earlier, Yogi Berra had some great sayings or 'Yogiisms', but there have been others who have made equally profound statements, all related to the great game of golf:

"I don't say my golf game is bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they'd come up sliced" - Miller Barber

"For most amateurs, the best wood in the bag is the pencil" - Chi Chi Rodriguez

"There are two things that are not long for this world - dogs that chase cars and pro golfers who chip for pars" - Lee Trevino

"Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air" - Jack Benny

"The only reason I played golf is so I could afford to go hunting and fishing" - Sam Snead

"Golf is a good walk spoiled" - Mark Twain

"When I'm on a course and it starts to rain and lightning, I hold up my one iron, 'cause I know even God can’t hit a one iron" - Lee Trevino

"I play in the low 80's - if it's any hotter than that I don't play" - Joe E Louis

"Golf is 90 percent inspiration and 10 percent perspiration" - Johnny Miller   

"Anybody want a husband? I'm a husband" - Harry Barnes

and finally, this one is from another of our more experienced members when he was asked why he hardly ever takes a practise swing:

"I don’t want to waste it because it might be a good one!" - Jack Lee

Congratulations to all participants for making this year's Wednesday's Men's Nights a tremendous success, and we hope to see everyone back next year!

Men's Night Committee