Greetings from the Illinois Valley Country Club!
For the first news bit, let’s start right off with a bang. During Sunday night skins, Todd Johan got a hole-in-one on the par-three #4 hole from the blue tees. This is a 125-yard shot and into a narrow green that also has a kidney shape so a golfer must fly into the green in the narrowest part with a high shot that will partially bite into the turf. This allows the ball to slow enough so that it will not hit the pin with such ferocity that it bounces away from the hole and instead slows enough to roll or drop into the hole. I received calls immediately following the shot from Graham, Poke and Todd himself. I would have been on hand to witness it but I was worn out from a weekend of golf and finally made a deal with myself that I would fix my lawn sprinklers, mow everything at home and get in bed by 11 p.m. I saw Todd the next morning at Taylor’s and he was still excited and beaming.
The Men’s Club finished up their regular season and are now into the playoffs. The first eight teams were chosen to compete in a bracket tournament in which any team can win first place with three wins in a row.
The ladies have been out diligently, and the new gals are increasing in skills, along with the seasoned girls, some of whom have been playing a number of years and some just two-year beginners themselves.
I got invited to play in the first inaugural Boy’s and Girl’s Club tournament at Dutcher Creek. I got invited by some Umpqua Bank guys and Umpqua paid for our entry, the guys bought me a few beers and we even got a swag bag of little advertising merchandise which included entry in the putting contest. If you sank the first putt, you would win a cute sticker from the new indoor golf simulator in Grants Pass, the second hole would win you a tee shirt and the third, a nice polo. I missed the short sticker shot and, losing confidence, I just slapped the next shot at the flat. But for the longer hole I made that one for a T-shirt and feeling like I had won already, slapped the next shot at the long breaking putt. It also went in and I gleefully accepted the two shirts. Our team came in at 18 under par for the 18 holes, which sounds really good, but the tournament allowed for four “grenade tosses.” This allowed all four players to use a toss to increase the distance of a shot, without assessing an additional stroke. This lowers the scores considerably for the field as a whole, so the winning team posted a 48 out of a possible 70-22 under par. I don’t believe they cheated either, just having fun and using their tosses at opportune times. Roger Hults was a gracious and friendly host as always. I got to meet up with Dustin Henderson and a couple of other guys from I.V.
I foolishly got home early enough to try to get a couples night going and had Poke and Taylor, Rhino and a friend and Tracy and I show up. Unfortunately, Poke decided to play skins with the guys, Taylor and Tracy went out together, leaving me and Rhino and his buddy looking at each other. I grabbed the maintenance cart and just put out sprinklers and Rhino and his buddy went out and looked to be having a fun evening. Rhino is Hawaiian so he dressed up in traditional modern Hawaiian attire (no shirt and barefoot), a very comfortable way to play golf, if you don’t have a big belly like the rest of us, that is.
Then on Saturday, we had to drag ourselves out of bed and bring 3 teams to the annual St. Anthony’s Festa tournament that was headed up by Jakob White and his family, cousins, aunts, uncles, dogs, etc. They put on a really nice tournament at Stoneridge Golf Course, which sits just down the mountain from the Dry Creek Landfill and just up the mountain from the Auto race track. They couldn’t decide if they were distracting us with dump trucks or hot rods all day. The weather was marvelous, and the White family members were handing out snacks, driving beverage carts, taking portraits and being wonderful hosts. We entered their little 50/50 putting fundraiser and Todd won the $100 by setting two putts of three within just a few inches of the hole. I won a KP and had my name on the Long Drive stake for guys my ancient (I use ancient instead of age not by mistake). John Sloan and Hunter Blevins rounded out our team. John and Hunter are both long ball hitters and put us in some great spots from which to hit our second shots. Danny Day and Dustin came over and teamed up with some guys from Medford. Scott, Sue, Brian and Sharyl teamed up and Jake got Jason Gill to come over from Lakeview to join the fun. Afterward, they put on a very nice sponsors’ dinner at the fairgrounds and had live music, a delicious tri-tip dinner cooked by Bobby White and Jesse Blevins, and good Portuguese red wine to wash it down.
**Coming up Aug. 24, the annual Jay Miller Memorial. Tee time 9 a.m., come join us for the fun.
**And remember, kids 17 and under always play for free at IVCC.