Gardeniaville Golf: May 21-23

Solid qualifying rounds earn a first round bye in TGA event:

Haggard and Three-Putt Willie ousted by tournament favorites

The Stone Creek, Stone Cold, Muni Miracle

Tips get Torched

Above: That tiny figure 200 ft up the mountain is actually Haggard looking for his tee ball.

With a soggy , debris filled, cart path only golf course ahead of us on Saturday there was only one logical set of tees to play from. That's right, tip it out boys! Everyone was pretty bummed out about the Stroke Play Club Championship being tornadoed out this weekend so we made a decision to play even if it meant driving away from the weather. A quick call from Hobie to Pepper Friday night at 10 pm settled it...Oakwood in Enid at 9am. It certainly seemed like a good idea at the time to everybody but Pepper. Fortunately for Pepper, when I showed up to Cedar at 6am to pick up the clubs they were open for play.

We threw the balls up to decide partners for a game of bridge. William and Haggards' balls must have some sort of magnets in them because they landed next to each other for the second week in a row. I actually think Haggard sits around in his living room practicing throwing golf balls up. Has anyone ever seen someone get the swing so many times? Hobie, KJ, and myself decide that with his double digit handicap KJ should captain our team. He is the best 10 in the country by the way.

William knocks his tee shot off of a house right on # 3 and lands it right in the middle of the fairway somehow. This was all of the omen we needed to never roll the drums for the entire day. William and Haggard got down somewhere along the way and got the points from 2 to 4 on KJ/Hob and then to 6 on KJ/Park. We certainly were not going to roll them the way Willy and Hag were striking it. At the turn William was 1 over, Hag 2 over, myself 3 over, KJ 4 over, and Hobie was playing with his nuts somewhere around 6 or 7 over.

We could never gain any ground on the back nine. William was still on fire and Haggard is the best golfer on the planet from 90 yards out of his own fairway. If he ever figures out his driver we are in big trouble. It is hard to time that swing wild ass swing up though! William rolled in a birdie on 18 to come in at 1 over. I don't care who you are, one over on that wet ass course from the tips is about as hard as finding a happy wife after an Emergency Nine. I finished with a 77 playing the par threes five over. Haggard shot a 78 from the wrong fairway. KJ played well enough in the middle of Hobie and I to keep us from losing a fortune. Hobie scraped around in the low-mid eighties with a far cry from his 'A' game.

With limited drum rolling nobody got hurt too bad. Although we would have loved to see Pepper D, it was a pretty damned good day in Gardeniaville.

Side bar: Apparently our boy Whitworth played a round with Tony Romo today. Thank God none of Whit's fraternity brothers were there. It would have been embarrassing when they started with Whit's flag football MVP stories. I can hear Hobie now, " Our boy Whitworth here took his team to the Championship game ten years in a row! What the hell is your problem Tony?"

Sandbagger Title for Gardeniaville

Above: Stitt launches one towards water hazard


This Saturday was the annual Sandbagger tournament at at Cedar. The format was a pure scramble with handicaps. The sum of the four handicaps divided by four was the number of shots each team would get. Team Flegler/Walker/Haggard/Park won 1st place gross. There were a few points at stake after some side betting broke out. Gardeniaville residents Keith Stitt and Hobie Higgins teamed up with Pastor Bill Scheer and comedian/actor Rodney Carrington. The results were in fact comical. Park and Haggard wagered a few points with Stitt and Hobie. It was clear after a few holes that the only way for Stitt and Hobie to avoid surrendering points was for a rainstorm to wash out the tournament. No such luck. After a early clutch putts from Haggard and Walker and overall great ball striking from Flegler, Park was able to hole his approach shot for eagle on 18th ( 5th hole of the day). Haggard bombed a drive to 70 yards on and Park used skills learned at the Dave Pelz short game school to do the rest. They were able to carry this momentem for several holes giving themselves a lead that would be unable to squander.



Keith, Hobie, Bill and Rodney did play well enough to come in T4 in the Gross Division. They would have most likely contended for the title if not for two of their members having trouble getting to bed at a reasonable time Friday evening. Any guesses who those two may be?