By TONY CHERBY
BUENA VISTA — For the lucky 13th time, it’s my duty to wrap up the Ocean City Thursday Senior Golf League’s 33rd season of play. (They told me this gig would only last two years.) Our May-to-September jaunt is traversed on lush green fields in the spring, and they turn bristly and brownish as each summer winds down. What matters most is not the evolving terrain; it’s that the the guys stay the same, united in an impossible goal of mastering an impossible pastime. All we want is to hit the ball in each other’s company, and then go find it so we can see what the heck is going to happen next.
Obviously, we are in a different solar system than golfers like Anika and Nancy and Jack and Tiger, but we do know them by their first names, and we do share the same quest; for no matter the score, and how we got there, we do play the same game and share the same pain and joy. It may look far different, but not in our dreams. And dreams are what matter in the end.
Such are the thoughts that come to mind every time I go down the last fairway on the final day of every Ocean City Senior League season; simply put, we are very lucky to be able to play golf with friends. As for our scores? Well, often it’s best that they are soon forgotten; unless, of course, they were the best for the day. That was so for Bill Wright, Dane Mayson, Stan Borucki and Bruce Goldberg, our Scramble winners on Sept. 17. They shot -2 with birdies on one, seven, 16 and 17, and bogies on two and 13.
I joke about it, but it’s a good thing Bill Wright’s been around to break all the ties we had this season. The rest of us would probably opt for settling them by way of a food fight. Because our scramble a few weeks ago saw four teams finish one back of the winners; this time, three did so. That’s a testament as to how well Stan Borucki balanced the teams.
But Stan’s also getting a lot of practice at revamping the teams just minutes before we head out the door when someone is AWOL without letting him know. And Bill Wright is also getting accustomed to applying those tiebreaker protocols after several teams come home with identical scores. So, after Bill ciphered the cards using a formula that NASA would envy, Team Baird, Bowman, Hawthorne and Schultz, at -1, were declared to be the runners-up. Along the way they did something I don’t think I’ve seen before: they rang up 17 pars and 1 birdie, with nary a bogey! Team Brandreth, Coppenbarger, DeLanzo and Gardner, also at -1, came in third after bagging birdies on four, six, 11 and 12, and suffering bogies on eight, 15 and 16.
Team Cornell, Lapham, Hiner and Yours Truly had the most birdies (five), but we wiped most of them out with the most bogies (four). The tiebreaker did us in. But we did birdie 10, the hole that Doug Baird insists is our hardest, and he won’t get much of an argument from me. That, after Mark Lapham came up with one of the best flop shots I’ve seen in a long time, 40 or so yards from behind that steep bunker guarding the right side of the green, about 15 feet beneath the hole. He came to 4’, and Hiner canned the birdie putt. Everyone in our league has been where Mark was, so they know what a great shot it was. I’m calling it our “Shot of the Day.” Our fifth team, made up of Carter, Gahr, Lyons and Schultz took 74 strokes, aka, +2, to get around the track.
Tiebreaker Guru Wright was a “Season’s Best” winner; one of what I call our “Big Four.” He took home the trophy for Low Average Gross. Ed Lyons was next, winning the Low Average Putts trophy. Captain Dave Carter captured not only the big Low Average Net crystal, he also snagged one a smaller Single-Day award for Fewest Putts, an astounding 25 dings on our last day of match play. And Ralph DeLanzo not only won our fouth big award for Most Points; he also had two Closets to the Pins for 2024, a 1’6” shot on 12 and an 8” effort on 17, the latter of which came on our first day of play. It was also his first swing of the year. Bill Gardner won for a 3’10” shot on the difficult fifth hole, and Frank Coppenbarger’s 2’1” effort on hole eight was the best we saw there.
In the “Best Number but No Cigar” category, our lowest gross score for the year was Roger Probert’s 82. (He also had a 79, but it was during a qualifying round.) Dave Carter’s 64 was our lowest net, and Ralph DeLanzo’s 62 pars were most by far; Carter, who had a great year, had 47, and Wright had 42. DeLanzo also had the most birdies (six); Rick Schultz and Bill Wright nailed five. And we did have one glorious Eagle by Roger Probert, on hole three after what he called a “nice” drive, a “nice” 6-iron, and a ”nice” putt. Rich Hawthorne had six Pin Wins, which was remarkable because he was only able to log seven rounds. DeLanzo had five, and Bill Gardner had four Closest to the Pins.
Dave Carter also handed out “Presidential Awards” to his sergeants who help him run things. They are Scholarship Coordinator Tom Gahr, Scheduler Stan Borucki, Tony “Keeper of the Cash” Cornell, Rich “Handicapper and Such” Hawthorne, and me, for whatever it is that I do. (Hope I didn’t miss anyone.) And, last but far from least, we salute Captain Dave Carter for another fine year as our leader. We stopped counting how many it’s been, but I’m pretty sure that the count is north of a dozen.
Dave also presented gifts to Bobby DeFonzo, Buena Vista Country Club’s hard-working “outside guy,” and to Stephanie Murray, who is Queen of the Bunker, the club’s cozy bar and grill. Without them, who knows how long it would take to get us warmed up and off and running?
And, as always, thanks to the Ocean City Sentinel staff, especially Editor in Chief David Nahan, for publishing our stories and photos. He’s been doing that for most of our three-plus decades of existence. We are more than grateful to him and to all his folks.
Winter well, friends, and don’t be sad; it’s but a gap wedge down the fairway before we tee it up again. And never forget that “The Most Important Shot in Golf is The Next One,” which is also as good a lesson for living well as I’ve come across.
