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As groups returned to the clubhouse following the
sound thrashing, many members of the UC Golf Club contemplated asking
their opponents for a prescription to strong painkillers and
antidepressants. Only our tremendous pride enabled us to withstand the
further humility that such requests would certainly involve.
The tournament at Tilden didn’t go as expected.
Fresh off a loss at to UCSF at the NCGA Team Match event on the previous
Tuesday we’d hoped to serve them a portion of humble pie. Unfortunately
instead of serving the pie we were served a second helping of this dreadful
dessert. It had a bitter albeit familiar taste.
And thus the third annual cross-Bay Match ended in a route for
the bad guys. The final results were 43-32. UCSF fielded 26 teams and of 10 of those teams posted net 60 or
better! That's pretty darn good shooting, or at least some crafty
sandbagging. Either way, we'll take the high road and accept our defeat.
Primitive Battlefield Speech by Club
President Inspires Some, Confuses Others.
While serving as team
captain at the 2-ball event in which UCGC had been defeated
by UCSF, Walburg took it upon himself to send a personalized email to
each member of the club. (Automated, mind you). In retrospect the idea
had been to use the recent loss to fuel excitement and victory. The message itself, far from inspiring the membership simply
generated confusion and called into question both the leadership ability
and sanity of the Club President.
Walburg's Battlefield Speech - emailed on 6/30/2005:
Message entitled "beat them with sticks"
"In the old days of long long ago people used
to beat each other with sticks. Later they got wise and rode horses
but they still beat each other with sticks. Nowadays on short grass
people ride green and white horses without legs and they still try to
beat each other with sticks, but they don’t do it for real, just in
they heads. And they do it with making balls into the sky and into
small caves. When the people were still using horses with legs men
like Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe used to stand in front of the guys
with sticks and say things to make them angry to win with sticks. This
is what I learned from the box of many lights in my cave. I’m not
Russell or Mel, I only scrub the pot, but I’ve seen many stories on
the light box.
Two suns ago we were beaten by sticks from the tribe across the water.
Two suns from now we will again be holding sticks to each other, but
we will be in our hills. These hills should not have to watch us get
beat with sticks. Let the hills see us win with sticks. Carry with you
to the hills your leather gloves, your copper bracelets, and your
titanium sticks; Don’t cry or cheer while holding the sticks; Use the
anger fire to send the ball into the small caves. Let the sticks put
the balls into the small caves. Let it happen. Then in our hills we
will celebrate with the fire-water. -- Elpirt Yebog"
Response from the troops varied. Most were roused
and pledged victory in battle. Most also grasped the message as a source
of humor. Others were confused, but eventually got it:
Reactions to the Speech:
Chris Aronson was very elated: "Brilliant
words of encouragement! And nothing will be finer than: "in our hills we
will celebrate with the fire-water"... Chris' wish came true as he and
Mike Armstrong won the 2-Ball Championship. However they were the only
two from our club with cause for celebration.
Edward Kleinhans, who wasn't even competing
in the event, swelled with ferver: "In all
likelihood me and the family will be out of town...however, the message
riled up the innards and core of my existence...I almost took my office
wedge and took down a couple office mates and prepared to leave my wife
and kids on their own to play Tilden." --Eddy
Kelly Alvarez took the opportunity to
express his desire for a different site of the annual battle: "Abandon
the hills for they glow with evil spirits. They are the spirits of time
and space. Upon entering the hills one is young and at peace, Upon
exiting the hills one has become old & toothless, Abandon the hills for
they glow with evil spirits, Move to the flatlands where the sun will
warm the spirits, Move to the flatlands where one is forever young, Move
anywhere but Tilden least yee age prematurely!" --kba
Sam Scalise also responded in kind with
"Aaron, When the sun rises on the tribe from across the water, and they
are in our hills, I will be swinging sticks on the land by the water,
known as Alameda, along with people who used to be members of our tribe.
These are called Errol and Eric. Another member of our tribe, called
David of Chia, will also swing sticks on the land by the water. I had
hoped that Errol and Eric could join our tribe in the hills for that
day. But, the tribal elders forbade comingling in that place. May your
sticks be swift and true." --Shaoul Rabaz
Gene Eun also felt the primal call: "I
suddenly have an urge to eat an extra rare piece of steak tonight. Can't
wait 'til Saturday." --Gene
Former Club President George Dea also felt
the magic: "Hi Aaron, That should inspire our club to a great victory
against UCSF."
Marty Lorber was appreciative: "Thanks for
my best e-mail of the month. I had thought of using my sticks for
firewood, but with all these new fangled environmental laws... Hope to
see the tribe shortly." --Marty
The funniest reply came from Jeff Day: "Wake
and bake, again, eh?..."
Despite the unfortunate overall match results, the
unintelligible speech did nevertheless inspire the ranks to put forth
better average individual net scores (see below) than those
of the other tribe. Yet luck was not with us as we were unable to capitalize
on our better net scores. Our gross scores, as always, were much better
than the other tribe's gross scores. The day they turn in better gross
scores we should all turn in our golf clubs. Thankfully, that'll never
happen.
Logistics covered until late the night before
In preparation for this event opposing club
presidents had stayed up until 2am exchanging emails. There were lots of
last minute logistical changes to be made regarding the event. They also created signs to print out to remind members to jot down
all actual scores for each hole, regardless of whether or not a player
was out of the hole. (Later we’d need to post these scores. The only
reason this is being mentioned here is to take the opportunity to remind
players of this as it generates lots of extra work for us later.) Walburg spent about
eight hours fine-tuning
the electronic scoring sheet, which hopefully will be useful for several
years. It enabled us to post the entire tournament results by 9am the
following day (with only 2 hours of sleep). Walburg needed to catch a
flight to Albuquerque which departed Oakland Airport at 10:40 Sunday.
Doubtless this is TMI (too much information), but the logistics were so monumental as to be
worth mentioning. Speaking of TMI, this write-up is now being typed on a
laptop on board a plane parked at the Las Vegas Airport (layover). We’re
about to take off so I’ll have to pretend to turn this off for a few
minutes. Be back shortly…(OK, we're flying again so I may resume typing…).
With so many players it’d difficult to recall or
convey all the countless experiences which occurred. And wagers which
may or may not have been won and lost. I know I felt a little lighter
when I drove home. There was less of a bulge ('wallet bulge' that is)
the slacks and the seat.
Other members seemed unusually cheerful. Rick Guevara was delighted with
his bulge.
Weather perfect:
Heading up to the course members with early tee
times were greeted by the fog so familiar to we who know summer golf at
Tilden. The fog burned off by 9:30 and temperatures began climbing to a
perfect 80 degrees. There was a slight steady breeze, perhaps 8-10 mph
Recent history.
This was our 3rd annual team event with UCSF. During these few short years the rivalry and familiarity have
already blossomed substantially.
The UCSF club, from the outset, at least appeared
to be more of a team. Their blue shirts were a feature from the get go.
By next year we too will likely have our own team shirts. They’ll be a
bit classier and more attractive in design, particularly with regard to
the team logo. The UCSF logo is about as interesting as typing UCSF in
Green Geneva font, whereas our Cal logo has a flare and rolling feel
similar to the freshly rolled greens of Augusta..
There is no bitterness here, but it must be noted
that our team pride has not diminished. We may have lost this team even
based on net scores, however our team average for gross score was 84.86 as
opposed to the UCSF’s average of 89.92. This means each of our players
required, on average, 5.06 strokes less to complete the round. At the
end of the day we know we may have underperformed our personal averages,
however we can beat these chumps heads up on any given day. (See more
details below).
No Knee Knockers for Steve at Tilden this year
Steve Desimone having the previous week undergone
arthroscopic knee surgery to repair torn cartilage in his left knee was unable to
compete. (His timing turned out to be impeccable) . Nevertheless Steve
came out to the course to support the effort and field the scoring for
the first half of the tournament. Steve’s prognosis from the doctor was
that he needed only a week or so more before he’d be able to return to
the links. This is a remarkable recovery time. Member Mark Northfield
who is an orthopedic surgeon examined Steve’s knee, (two small band-aids)
and said that it looked like the procedure had been performed
brilliantly. At the turn Al Rollins saw and heard about Steve’s knees
and mentioned that he’d undergone knee surgery six times. His surgery
had been necessitated by many years working on the Police Force. Al is
now in charge of security at California Hall, Office of the Chancellor
of UC Berkeley. Steve knees are healing so quickly that he will likely
not even miss a step in the Eddie Reed tournament, where he is currently
in the Semis.
Year three of this rivalry - Overall impressions
It looks like we’ve got ourselves a bona fide
rivalry. Sure, we could ask that out opponents be more skilled with the
clubs, but as for courtesy and sportsmanship, we couldn’t have asked for
more.
On paper we should have won
On paper we handily defeated UCSF. Our average individual net score was
72.48 compared to 72.72. So how did we lose with such a wide margin?
Basically it was a combination of unlucky breaks. First, our ham & eggs
just weren't working to the same degree as the ham & egg factor of
the UCSF club. This resulted in better team net scores for them.
Additionally the pairings worked against us. Pairings is simply blind
luck. No sour grapes here, but if you break down the stats we should
have won this event. Certainly based on our individual net scores we had
an edge. UCSF had the advantage of luck on their side, which is the
only way one could ever rationally explain how they ever defeated
us.
2005 Stats
|
|
Pts. |
Avg. F9-Grs |
Avg. B9-Grs |
Avg. Grs |
Avg. Indiv. Net |
Avg. Team Net |
|
UCGC |
32 |
43.18 |
41.68 |
84.86 |
72.48 |
64.12 |
|
UCSF |
43 |
46.2 |
43.72 |
89.92 |
72.72 |
63.08 |
|
|
|
|
Difference: |
5.06 |
|
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2004 Stats
|
|
Pts. |
Avg. F9-Grs |
Avg. B9-Grs |
Avg. Grs |
Avg. Indiv. Net |
Avg. Team Net |
|
UCGC |
43 |
43.39 |
42.22 |
85.61 |
73.94 |
65.68 |
|
UCSF |
41 |
47.11 |
45.2 |
92.31 |
74.31 |
65.32 |
|
|
|
|
Difference: |
6.70 |
|
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2003 Stats
|
|
Pts. |
Avg. F9-Grs |
Avg. B9-Grs |
Avg. Grs |
Avg. Indiv. Net |
Avg. Team Net |
|
UCGC |
24.5 |
42.59 |
44.29 |
86.88 |
na |
64.9 |
|
UCSF |
26.5 |
49.97 |
48.59 |
98.56 |
na |
63.5 |
|
|
|
|
Difference: |
11.68 |
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