By TONY CHERBY/For the Sentinel
BUENA VISTA – The mainstay of the Tuesday Ocean City Senior Golf League’s May-to-September jaunt is match play, in which we vie for a few bucks each week and nice crystal trophies at the end, but mostly for bragging rights over the winter.
For laughs and giggles every month or so, we scramble.
I could say we do it for comic relief, but there is never any relief from the comedy that ensues when you give cotton tops a bunch of sticks and balls, and something at which to whack them. Archeologists and anthropologists trace the evolution of all phases of the Human Comedy to “stick and ball” games in which all cultures seemed to have partaken.
I think the term “golf” and the game as we know it can be traced to one played in the Netherlands on frozen Dutch streets as far back as the 1200s. Men and women strapped on skates, grabbed sticks, and whacked stones and, later, balls filled with hair and feathers, to distant targets.
This ice game made its way to the British Isles, and especially to the part of it called Scotland, where the modern game was born. They don’t have much ice there, so they used the wind-blown, useless land that often “linked” villages to beaches; hence, the term “golf links.”
Alistair Cooke called it that “Marvelous Mayhem” and “Scottish Torture.” Of course, immigrants (when we had those things) brought it to the USA. One of them was James “Jolly Jim” Fraser who moved from Aberdeen, Scotland, to America in 1907. He became a pioneer golf professional who shaped the game at Seaview Golf Club on a road that became Route 9 in Galloway. Leo, one of his sons, started the PGA Tour for pros (not the same as the PGA of America) along with Arnold Palmer, the King of The Game, in the late 1960s.
Leo bought posh Atlantic City Country Club after WWII, and in 1962 he built less-fancy Mays Landing Golf Club in Hamilton Township so common folk would have somewhere cheap. Leo cajoled his friend Sam Snead to christen the place with an exhibition match against Champagne Tony Lema, an Open winner who was destined to stardom. But young Tony was killed in a plane crash four years later. Then some 5 years ago, sadly, MLCC fell into disrepair. But two-thirds of it has now been resurrected and rebranded as “Mays XII.” They did a great job with the course. It offers great fairways and well-manicured greens and sand bunkers.
But I do digress, so back to us. We held our fourth scramble of the season in not-so-doggy-day weather on the 25th. The team of “Philly Frank” Coppenbarger, “English Bob” England, and Rich “Scheduler and Such” Hawthorne won, coming back to The Bunker, Buena Vista Country Club’s bar and grill, at -4. This marks two wins in a row for Rich. They birdied 1, 7, 8, 12 and 14. The only blip on their radar screen was a bogey on 9.
Mark Lapham, Lou Salgado and Bill Wright (only winners get nicknames) did almost as well, so no cigar; well, maybe a Swisher Sweet. But no matter what, you don’t get rich here even when you win. A coffee at the Wawa on the way home could happen, but you might have to skip the banana. Anyway, this erstwhile threesome had 4 birdies on 5, 9, 14 and 17. Their sole step south was a bogey on 18, the longest par 4 BVCC throws at us.
Old Man Par prevailed over all the other teams. Ralph DeLanzo, Mark Franks and Pat Chestnut finished at +1 after bagging 4 birdies, but that was offset by a bunch of bogies. You can do the math if you need to know how many. It’s too ugly to mention.
The other four teams all came back to the barn at +2. Call my neighbor and leave a message if you want names. If he relays the note to me, I’ll get back to you. Unless I have to go to the Acme for bread, milk and Cheetos. Or just tune in to our website (ocstgl.golfleague3.net) to see them.
Oh, fine. Here they are. Team Harlan, Gahr, Curtis and Mackey; Team Ramsay, Baird and Gardner; Team Hollerbach, Carter Lyons and Goldberg; and Team Van Zandt, Mason and Greene. Back to match play for the next two weeks, and then our 35th closing day scramble and awards presentation over lunch.