BUENA VISTA – The Ocean City Tuesday Senior Golf League had its first scramble for the year on June 11. The schedule calls for one every fourth round and we assiduously adhere to that calendar – sometimes, more or less.
This time, six teams teed it up and the winning one included another golfer who, like Bob VanZandt a week before, had returned to our fold: Roger Probert, best known for the time he hit a golf ball out of the water sans shirt, socks and shoes – successfully. Roger is back in the pack after a fove-year leave.
Roger, Tom “Da Coach” Gahr and Dave “Stogie” Carter returned to “The Bunker” (Buena Vista’s aptly named restaurant and grill) with a scorecard in tow that featured 14 pars, four birdies, and zero bogies: a spectacular 68, or -4. On TV, they call that a “clean card.”
Congratulations to our winners, who will pocket $10 each next time we meet.
Speaking of drives, over my six decades or so of having played this game, I have seen many a club, mostly drivers, buy the farm while in play, but never like what happened to Dane Mayson’s on hole No. 6. Dane got fitted for a new set of sticks a few weeks ago: top-of-the-line Callaway’s, including the same driver (head) that Xander Schauffle used to win the PGA Championship a few weeks ago. He told me he hasn’t even gotten the bill for them yet.
Mayson steps up to the plate, takes a mighty swing and then at the mid-point of his arc, a resounding crack. Go to our website (ocstgl.golfleague3.net/) and you’ll see what I mean.
Our runners-up also had a clean card, which is a rare accomplishment when we scramble. But they bagged three, not four birdies so they were close, but no cigar. So Rich “Ferdinand” Hawthorne, Anthony “Cuddles” Cornell, Bruce “I wasn’t late this time” Goldberg, and new member Tom Bowman put a great -3 round together. Their share of the pot is a fiver.
A third team comprised of Bill Wright, Doug Baird, Charles Smyth and guest Scott Price also came in under par with four birdies and three bogies. They were -2 when we passed them on our way back to the barn as they lined up their approach shot to their final green of the day. But that evil troll who lives in the bunker that guards “The Terrible Tenth” made sure that when they departed, their -2 was no more. They finished -1 and will pocket 2 bucks each.
Dane Mayson, Ed Lyons, George Curtis and yours truly had a miserable start, bogeying our first three holes, but we did manufacture a nice comeback, bagging three birdies after that. And just ask Ed Lyons if we might not have even won if not for two misplaced rakes that royally tripped him up. By the way, rakes should be placed so that the head is in the trap. That’s a local rule on some golf courses, and it makes a lot of sense.
Bill Hurston, Ralph Schultz, Bill Brandreth and Bob VanZandt turned in a card showing four bogies and three birdies, for a total of 73, or +1. But it also shows a -1 in red script as their final count, cogitated by our esteemed official scorers, i.e., the tag team of Dave and Rich. But hey, all of us are quite capable of creating scorecards that look like fuzzy math extravaganzas.
Ralph DeLanzo, Stan Borucki, Jack Hiner and another new member, Ron Kelly didn’t win anything either, posting … well, let’s just say a high number. But I’m sure they had a good time anyway. In any case, welcome to the party, Ron, and don’t despair; next time the scramble team you get stuck with will have nowhere to go except up.
– By TONY CHERBY/For the Sentinel
At top, Tom Gahr, Dave Carter and Roger Probert won the Ocean City Tuesday Senior League’s first 2024 Scramble with a great score of 68.