Tee Tattler

Hello from the Illinois Valley Country Club golf course!
In this week’s action, the Men’s Club guys did not play the regular league nights due to the Memorial Day Holiday, so instead Eugene and Scott set up a little 4-person scramble with the normal Monday and Wednesday night teams. Winners were D’Lynn, Poke, Tyler, Troy with 1st gross at 6 under par 30 and David, Josh, Brett and Isaiah for 1st net at 26.
On Thursday evening Ladies Night, the high school graduation stole most of the ladies away but the Nolan girls showed up and looked to be having a nice time out there. Kasy Griffin was sitting in Amy’s cart and I said “have a nice time team Nolans!” Kasy reminded me that she is a Griffin so I dubbed her as an honorary Nolan. If you see her, be sure and call her “Kasy Nolan” hee hee.
Friday evening skins was such a nice evening with a slight breeze, maybe 72 degrees and freshly mowed and rolled greens. The group included: Todd, Troy, James (with Katy), James, Graham (with Odie), D’Lynn (with Mattie), Terry, Tracy, Colby, Emily, Turtle and Bart Lewis came up from Fortuna to visit his brother Bobby and I talked him into playing with us too. D’Lynn got first skin with a chip-in birdie on #1. Colby and James R. hit their putts at the same time and their balls hit each other, knocking James’ ball in for an Eagle. D’Lynn had a birdie so we called it a three-birdie tie and disallowed the Eagle. Colby got the lone par on #3 for a skin. On the difficult #5, there were 8 balls on the green putting for pars. Todd sunk his, leaving D’Lynn a 6 footer to tie it up, D’Lynn’s ball hit a small dip and scooted just around the hole, giving Todd the skin. On #7, D’Lynn hit a perfect drive and followed it with a great shot into the green, he sunk his 4-foot putt for birdie and another skin. On #8, Troy smoothed one in about 5-feet from the pin and made his par putt for the carry-over KPs. And on #9, we played another dollar for 4th shot KP. D’Lynn put his SECOND shot on, leaving him 2 putts to secure the KP. James putted for par, but no, Todd putted for par but no, D’Lynn lined his putt up carefully and struck it hard, it hit the back of the cup, jumped up in the air and dropped straight down for birdie. A nice evening and fun camaraderie with the folks.
Saturday was a little tournament to the memorial of a huge Jr. golf supporter, Steve Hurt, a truly nice person and nice mentor to the kids. We had six teams show up and each team’s entry fee was used to purchase a brand new set of clubs with a bag for the Jr. program. We have now bought eight sets of new clubs for them and are anticipating seeing the kids enjoy those clubs. Winners were David, Marcus, Zion (visiting from Montana) and Mason (13 years old and hitting the ball like a champ). They had 5 birdies and an Eagle for a smoking 29 gross (24 net). David told me that Mason couldn’t miss from anywhere inside of 10 feet. Second place was Jaime, Jamie, Kasy and Eugene—poor Eugene had to play with the girls, I could have substituted for Eugene! Third place was Scott, Sue, Lynn and Travis, Fourth – Mike, Amy, Melyndee and Tyler and Don, Randy, Randy and Alex, having too little handicap closed out the field.
And finally, on Saturday morning, Dave came to me telling me that the foot valve on the fresh water pond pump was sticking or something and he could only get just a little pressure from the pump. I went down and tried to remove the foot valve by itself but the bolts were rusted too tightly, so I removed the entire pipe right at the pump. I found a mass of grass and acorns clogged in the narrow part of the pump venturi. Once I had the pipe undone, I wrapped a rope around the base of the foot valve and I was able to manhandle it out of the sump. The entire foot valve had collapsed so I took it to the warehouse at the sausage plant and me and Buddy rebuilt it and I was able to get it put together like new. David and Jamie stopped by to offer me some refreshments, Bart and Bobby stopped and helped me line the pipe back up and then Jason Stone and Rowdy came by later with more refreshments-thank goodness for good friends and full ice chests.
**Coming up-Jr. Golf program starts June 13, $25 gets you 6 weeks of golf, including a tournament and a pizza and ice cream party.
**Alumni tournament is July 6, always a super fun time with live music and the big wedding tents set up on the driving range.