BUENA VISTA — Golf in America generates almost $4 billion annually for charities and other good causes. No other sport is in the same hemisphere when it comes to giving. And those of us in the Ocean City Senior Golf League are proud to participate in this grand tradition in our own small way.
Each year, in association with Heritage Golf Links, we donate scholarship money to Ocean City High School seniors on the golf team. This time, the recipients included Isabella Freund, $600; Sam Williams, $300; Race Myers, $300; Alex Loesch, $150; and Zach Mazzitelli, $150. To put it quite simply, this is the best thing that we do, and we have done it for many, many years.
Charles Cristella has been perched atop our leaderboard since we came out of the gate in May. This week he remained undefeated, but he no longer owns a perfect record. Jeff Mansueto put an end to his 4-0 sweeps; he and Cristella fought to a tie in as close a dustup as one can imagine. Each won 4 holes on the outward nine, and both shot 48s. (They have the same handicap.) Coming home, Jeff took 3 holes to Cristella’s 1 but CC bested JM by 2 strokes, thanks mostly to Jeff’s one and only disaster which came in the satanic confines of hole 10. Heats can’t get any deader than that. Except that they did.
Speaking of hole 10, check this week’s sky-high numbers, suffered at the hands of that monster: seven 7s, three 8s, two 9s, and a 10. Only Bill Wright and Dave Carter notched pars. I say we just skip it and sit back and enjoy the scenery until we get to hole 11 which is by far a much more civilized place to get on with our lives and our bogies in peace and in one piece. When the USGA gurus determined that 10 is not the hardest hole at Buena Vista, they must have been smoking week-old divots.
Like Cristella, Jack Hiner also had a perfect run going, but unlike him Jack met his match this time in the person of Bill Brandreth. Double B has a higher handicap that Hiner, but he didn’t need even 1 extra spot. Bill came home with a card displaying 4 strokes fewer than Jack’s paperwork. But you don’t know Jack; I do know Jack, and I know that he’ll be back. Hiner is a past flight champ who knows how to get to the top of the pile come September.
Speaking of Hawthorne (not that I was but I can’t pass up the chance), our perennial Birdie Meister finally got one. It happened on hole 16, the longest par 4 at Buena Vista. He ripped off a nice drive with this 48” barely legal cudgel. You could make a planter for your geraniums out of the head on that thing. Rich ended up about 160 yards from the hole, and out he yanks, of all things, a driving iron. Those things haven’t been made since before we had interstate highways. But Hawthorne hit a rope. The ball homed in on the cup the moment it left the sweet spot, landing just short of the putting surface, from whence it scampered not more than half a foot from the hole at one point. Hawthorne didn’t even bother watching it. He just twirled his club like John Wayne and put it back to bed. In the meantime, his ball was coming to rest less than 3 feet from the pin; a gimme for many. But no problem; after his famous “Putt ‘n Hop,” he circled a remarkable birdie 3 on his card. That grimy longest of all irons of his produced the shot of the day, hands down.
Lee Hollerbach is back from the injured reserve list after a bad Achille’s injury, but he still hits the ball much farther than anyone I’ve seen in my many years on the OCSGL circuit. He also had some remarkable iron shots, verified by two Closest to the Pin wins. But Lee’s most remarkable effort was a pitch shot out of the South Jersey trash that lives behind the lower level of hole 13’s unique two-tiered green. He had air-mailed that putting field with his third shot. But he got out of trouble with a stellar effort that saw his ball go past the hole and up the steep embankment behind it. in Tiger-like fashion, the ball then teetered precipitously on the crest and rolled back down to about 5 feet from the hole. Just like on TV. Lee made the putt in center-cut style for a par. His pitch on 13, and Hawthorne’s driving iron shot on 16, truly were wonderful efforts that I got to witness up close but not too personal. Who needs unreliable sources to tell me how to edit my fabrications when I can be party to things like that? Not Moi. (There’s that French again.)
The Carter/DeLanzo contest, like the Cristella/Mansueto skirmish, was a classic back-and-forth, up-and-down affair that ended as close as close can be. Dave and Ralph’s card featured the two best scores of the day: Ralph’s 83, and an 88 by Dave. Those were our only sub-90 rounds. (Bill Wright and Rich Hawthorne shot 90s.) Each player won the same number of holes, so they split the two match points. But Ralph’s net 71 to Carter’s 72 gave DeLanzo both medal points by that narrowest of margins. DeLanzo came home with a 3-1 win, but the match was far tighter than that final tally indicates. And Ralph had 29 putts to Carter’s 30. If Carter won 1 more hole, and took 1 less swing and needed 1 less putt, he would have won the match and tied for fewest putts. But this “you won’t believe how close it was” story is not quite over. Both birdied hole 5 from at least 15 feet away. But Carter did one-up Ralph and everyone else when he nailed a second birdie on hole 7. So, while DeLanzo had yet another fine round, Carter also had a great day in the sun and turf and trees and sand.
Overall, of course, it’s a real long way to September. Ralph and Charlie pace the league, but Bill Wright is hanging tough, Tony Cornell has quietly crept into the picture as he usually does, and the two Jacks, Hiner and Keenan, are also within striking distance. For that matter, everyone still has a chance. Many more points remain to be had, and at this early date things can change drastically in a single morning of play. In any case, our point count shows this lineup: Charles Cristella 14, Ralph DeLanzo 13, Tony Cornell 12, Bill Wright 12, Jack Hiner 12, Jack Keenan 10.
WEEKLY WINNERS
Low Gross, Ralph DeLanzo 83
Low Net, Ralph DeLanzo 71
Fewest Putts, DeLanzo 29
Closest to the Pin:
No. 5 Ed Lyons 14’
No. 8 Lee Hollerbach 37’ (He didn’t want to measure, but I insisted. Do I get an assist?)
No. 12 Bill Wright 28’ 1”
No. 17 Lee Hollerbach 11 ’9”
– By TONY CHERBY