Steve Desimone hitting his opening drive at Zinfandel hole #1. Was
he playing possum with Saul Geiser?No one in the club would know this first
hand, but members have likely heard that it's not good to mix drinks.
This is true at cocktail parties and it's true at golf courses as well.
When members recently mixed Zinfandel and Merlot, everyone had a hangover
the next day. That is, everyone except Steve Desimone (who needed pain
killers for other reasons) and those quirky left-handers who never need
drinks to see things backwards.
Steve Desimone successfully defended his President's Trophy (low gross)
while playing on a knee which is up for surgery next week (Or so he
claims...).
Steve managed not only to shoot the day's best score he also defeated Saul Geiser in his Eddie Reed match.
Match play is often about outwitting and/or psyching out your opponent.
If you can get him to feel off-balance he'll likely make some poor shots.
Now over the years members have grown wary of Steve's shenanigans. He's
revealed himself as a prankster and a hooligan. Recently Steve has
claimed to be victim of a painful knee injury. It sounds suspicious. He
can't even come up with a story of how or when the injury occurred. It's a
big mystery... Steve is supposedly undergoing surgery next week for a torn
medial meniscus cartilage in his left knee, among other problems, but unless we see a doctor's note
we'll have to assume he's just been playing possum with us all. He's a
crafty one alright.
Saul Geiser had heard the knee story and he wasn't taking it lightly. In
fact he was the first member on the course that day. He was at the
practice facility, working hard in the sand bunkers and on the range to
prepare for his Eddie Reed match against Steve. He even joked that
this might be one of those all-time classic match play classics. We may
never know the real truth. All we know is that Steve shot the day's best
score 77, and defeated Saul Geiser 2 + 1 in their match.
Steve then quickly drove to Sacramento
following his round to attend the wedding of Gene Bakkum (a former
assistant coach), or so Steve claims. For all we know Steve may have
simply wanted to get quickly out of Dodge before the other members returned
to the clubhouse and demanded to see evidence of this "knee injury."
 There
are only two or three left-handed players in the club, however they
dominated the Faculty/Staff tournament by winning two of the three major
trophies. Scores were very high. Last year on the same course a net 60 was
the low score. This year net 71 was all it took to win the coveted Chancellor's Trophy
(low net for UC affiliated members). This marks the all-time highest net
score ever to win this trophy. Prior to 1988 the Faculty/Staff
Chancellor's Trophy (now awarded to the low net score) had been awarded based
on a blind bogey score, not a net score. (This explains why there are
lower scores
engraved on the trophy.)
The next highest net score to win was a net 68, which most recently
happened in 1994. New
 member
Paul Lord captured this title. Paul's net 71 (with very close tiebreaker over
Greg Smith) was the best net score of UC-affiliated members. Paul was an undergrad at Cal and also earned his
master's degree there. Mark
Holman (another lefty) won the UC Golf Trophy with a net 70. This was
Mark's second major. Last year Mark won the second flight of the Eddie Reed.
Annual Raffle - Most Abundant Ever
On the occasion of our 50th annual Faculty/Staff tournament President
Walburg did his best to make this the best tournament and most abundant raffle we've ever had.
 As always, the
food at Poppy Ridge following the round was delicious. Then came the long-anticipated raffle.
We raffled off nearly $6,000 in prizes to the 57 participants.
Aaron Walburg had assembled a mass mailing of 850 letters (donation
requests) for this gala event. We thank our generous donors whose
contributions made possible such a terrific celebration of our 50th annual Faculty/Staff
tournament. One lucky winner was Boyd McCaslin with his night for two
at the Lafayette Park Hotel. St Mary's College President Brother Ron
"it pays to have friends in high places" Gallagher, won a foursome at Wente
Vinewyards and a new Taylor-made wedge.
There were lots of terrific prizes and as always every participant won
something.
Between Storms; No Rains, but high
winds and high scores; Closest to Pin material blown into lake.
The day prior to the tournament and the day after the tournament brought
rain to the Bay Area. Berkeley got about 1/4" of rain over this three day
period. During the tournament in Livermore there was no rain, however
Jerry Powell and Scott Meredith said it was raining when they left Orinda.
Rain is not unusual here this time of year, but 1/4" is about average for
the entire month. We just happened to get it all on the day before and the
day after our event.
Average temperatures were 65-degrees. Here is an
hourly log of the weather for
June 17. Winds were a steady 10 MPH throughout the day. Between the
rolling hills the winds would often form gusts. One such gust actually
air-lifted out Closet to the Pin material at Zinfandel #7 high into the air.
It fluttered
and flapped it's way across the green to the edge of the lake, then
continued soaring to the center of the lake, hung there 30 feet above the
center of the lake, then dove in like a seagull going after a sea bass.
In fact it was mistaken as a bird by members of the foursome who witnessed
this from the tee.
It landed in the middle of the lake and quickly sank to the bottom
taking all the nice shots with it. Scott Meredith was the first to voice
what slowly dawned upon the foursome, "Was that the Closest to the Pin?"
It had mattered little that the paperwork was in a fairly heavy
cardboard binder.
Walburg ran over with his ball fetcher extended, but it was in vane. The
material had sunk with the weight of the metal clips and even had it
floated it would likely have been beyond the reach of the ball-fetcher. At the club house there were
protests. "Did anyone in the first flight beat 6'-7"", that kind
of thing. Winning members were desperate to somehow recreate the past, but
alas, it will have to be re-done as a second CTP at an upcoming
tournament.
Strange Occurrences at Zinfandel Hole #7: Is it Haunted?
Aside from the Closest to the Pin material
being violently blown into the lake, the most amazing thing happened there
on this day was Tom Furtado's putt. It was a short putt; a 4 footer. It looped the hole
360-degrees, rimmed out, hung
there for a second, then very slowly reversed itself and fell into the hole.
The witnesses Meredith, Powell, Walburg) were all stunned. This was much
more dramatic at the hole than Woods' chip-in at the 16th hole of the Masters this year. If
the 7th hole at Poppy Ridge's Zinfandel course is haunted, then Tom
Furtado wishes all holes were haunted.
More on Desimone's Knee Injury
Despite the heckling he's receive here (no regrets, mind you) Steve's
injury does in fact appear to be serious. He's undergoing arthroscopic
surgery on the week of June 20. We'll know more in weeks to come, but
Steve may miss a few events this season. Jim Peretti put it well when
during a conversation with Steve he said, "You know, Dez... We’re at the age where we can
hurt ourselves and we don’t even know how it happened." Steve doesn't know
exactly how or when the injury occurred. He thinks it was during the
Spanos Tour Pro-Am event at Boundary Oak in mid-May when he
played with former First Team All-American Peter Tomasulo. It didn’t help things to play Diablo
Grande in pain. And it only got worse while playing Fort Washington
Country Club in Fresno with Vaughn Kezirian the next two days (his
longtime Cal
buddy). Fort Washington is Vaughn's home course. Of course
Vaughn may have finally won back some money, so Vaughn probably was
delighted with Steve's decision to play three consecutive days on a bum
knee.
Steve's Knee Surgery - Update
Steve says the surgery went well. He's expecting to be playing golf again
three weeks after the surgery.
Wistful thinking - Woeful stories of what might have been....
With a net 77 serving as the highest score to win the President's Trophy
(low gross) in nearly 20 years and with net 71 serving as the
score which earned the Chancellor's Trophy (low net), many members are
doubtless suffering over memories of what might have been. Dave Webb, for
instance, turned in a 79, but he had a triple bogie on the 4th hole of
Zinfandel and double bogies on two other holes. Had Dave simply bogied the
4th hole he'd have won (in theory) both the President's Trophy and
the Chancellor's Trophy. Mark Steppan also shot a 79, but that included
three double bogies. Saul Geiser shot 84, but was it not for an 8 on
Zinfandel #5 and a 9 on Zinfandel #8, he'd have matched the day's lowest
score. How would you like to lose the Chancellor's Trophy by four-tenths
of a stroke in the second tiebreaker while having taken a triple bogey during
the round? You can ask Greg Smith about that. How would you like to have
needed a par on #18 to win the Chancellor's Trophy, only to take a double
bogey. Ted Goode is your expert on that. Rick Guevara will for many months
have nightmares about the 6th hole of Zinfandel. If he could have bogied
the hole he'd have won the Chancellor's Trophy, however he took a
quintuple-bogie there. He still placed third in his flight, but the two in
front of him were driving home with incredibly large trophies in their
cars. Kelly Alvarez had a round with calamitous bookends. He began the
round with a quad on the opening hole and ended his round with a triple. A
par on those holes and Kelly goes home with the UC Golf Club Trophy. Of
course no story is more tragic than that of Lloyd Crenna. Imagine
returning to the clubhouse only to discover that a quadruple bogie on
Zinfandel #7 would have earned you the Chancellor's Trophy. Instead Lloyd
had suffered a 10 on this aforementioned haunted par three. Along with the
CTP paperwork, this hole swallowed up Lloyd's dignity as a man, and as a
mediocre golfer. The gods who invented this game must have done so with
the thought of torturing us humble mortals.
Photos
Members warm up for the big day: Mike Armstrong, Jeff Hazel and Van Hall.
Jeff Hazel with his US Open cap. The US Open was being played today at
Pinehurst #2, with an unlikely winner: New Zealand's Michael Campbell.
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