The Crony Golf Association held their inaugural “Crony Cup” on Saturday. The Black team responding to a pep talk they received from Captain Greg May, came out and won the first three best ball matches. They fell short in sweeping all four best ball matches as Doug May and Andrew Lorms, from the Blue team, were able to scratch out a ½ point on the 9th hole. So after the early best ball matches the Black team had a huge 3 ½ to ½ point lead. This was a big statement made by the Black team. They came out and set the tone early and often. It looked like this could get ugly quick.
We are not really sure what happened next. There was no team meeting for the Blue team, no words were spoken. Blue Captain Brad Underwood commented, “As we made the turn down by 3 points, we all knew exactly what had to happen”. Happen it did. The Blue team went out and swept all four of the alternating shot matches. This event can be played for the next 25 years and I promise you, sweeping alternating shot will never be done again.
So as the event headed to the final eight single matches, the Blue team had a slight lead at 4 ½ to 3 ½. The captains both regrouped and blindly threw down their lineups. Underwood surprisingly changed some of his players. “Yes, we had the momentum, but these were all individual matches, and I had ran several different line-ups through the computer, I was much more concerned about who could help the other player in his cart around the course. I guess one could make that argument. However, it is difficult to make the argument for what Greg May did. After getting beat in all four matches, he kept his guys in the same carts and threw down the same lineup. Not sure what comes of this. Will Greg be asked to step aside next year and let say a Jason Diwik or a Ryan Webb take over the reins?
In the first group, Ayers and Underwood tied, while Feller beat Brinkman. This made the event tied 5 to 5. There were six matches still on the course. The Blue team went to win 5 of the remaining 6 matches and tied the Diwik and Budzik match, when Diwik stuck a 3 wood to 3 feet on the 9th hole. Other results were Burkley over Osborn, Tommy Fry over Ryan Webb, Lorms (who went 2-0-1) over D. Fry (who has lost his game), Doug May over Smokin Joe, and Steve Porterfield over Greg May. One has to look at the performance of Andy Lorms and Doug May, who both went 2-0-1 on the day.
A simple recap of how everyone fared is as follows:
Underwood* 1-1-1
Brinkman 1-2
Burkley 2-1
T. Fry 2-1
Lorms 2-0-1
D. May 2-0-1
Porterfield 2-1
KC Budzik 2-1
Feller 1-1-1
Ozzy 1-2
Webb 1-2
D. Fry 1-2
Smokin Joe 1-2
Ayers 0-1-2
Diwik 1-1-1
G. May * 1-2
*denotes Captain
Blue team wins 10 ½ to 5 ½
It was safe to say, that the Cronies are big fans of this format and competition. Sorry to the Crony Wives, but this is going to be an annual event for many years to come. The format is just too good. This year, to say the weather was a bonus is quite an understatement. The Blue team will get the CUP and engrave the winning team members names on it. The Cup will be located at BWW Bethel. Next year, the Black team will be the home team and select the course. The interesting side note to watch this off-season, what does the Black team do to change things. Do they give Greg the permission to carry forward? Do allow him to captain with the ultimatum that this is a must win or he is done? I am not one to want to stir things up, but to me, it is pretty simple……..... One team has heart and the other team is more concerned where their Starbuck’s latte is coming from? Team Blue, stay healthy, stay out of the media, and enjoy the Cup!
