San Geronimo
1st Event of 2006 Season
Saturday, October 8, 2005
The weather was perfect at San Geronimo. There was a steady 10-12 mph wind,
however in the valleys of San Geronimo this winds wasn't always a factor. This
wind was more of a factor at Harding Park, where the world's top 50 players were
competing at the 2005 World Golf Championships-American Express Championship.
 The local Bay Area Sports scene was abuzz with several larger sporting events.
The largest was probably the Cal-UCLA football game which was being held that
evening in L.A. UCLA won in a nail-biter and pushed the Bears out of their top
10 ranking. In San Francisco the PGA was holding a $7.5 million tournament.
Tiger Woods went on to win this event on the second hole of a tiebreaker against
John Daly. It was very exciting and helped whet the appetites of this PGA
starved area. Huge galleries followed the
 pros all week. Many members of the UCGC were part of these galleries. Some members in attendance were Mike
Armstrong, Jeff Day, Saul Geiser, Van Hall, Mike O'Neill, and Aaron Walburg. Ed
Louie was working as a volunteer. Cliff Lowell (UCSF member) was serving as a
volunteer. He's a member at Harding Park and he was working as a "Hole Captain".
(Pictured above Tiger Woods following his round on Friday as he's being interviewed
by two-time US Open winner Andy North. Below John Daly tosses a ball to some
fans after walking off the 18th green on Friday.)
High Scores at San Geronimo
As for our own event, the most notable aspect of this event was the high scores.
The course wasn't particularly long, but the greens were difficult to read and
over the back nine there were several blind shots. Only Ryan Tabibian managed to
shoot below net par, and net 77 placed in each flight.
How many times has a member scored an
Octuple Bogey
(8-over par) on a hole and won? Likely it had never happened in the club until
Mark Siegel did it at San Geronimo. Mark carded a 12 on the tricky par four 11th
hole, but astonishingly he still shot net 76 to win the flight. It was an extremely
narrow margin of victory, because bunched up behind Mark four player's scored net 77. With
that 12 on the back nine, had Mark taken one more stroke he would have failed to
place altogether. He would have finished in 5th. It's rare the a net 76 ever
wins an event, but it's pretty amazing that Mark flail around so miserably on a
hole and still win. Does he deserve it? Probably not. Mark should hang up his
clubs and accept that he's no idea what he's doing out there. Instead, Mark
accepted his prize and now sits atop the 2006 Golfer of the Year standings,
along with Ryan Tabibian.
Double Eagle at San Geronimo - Well sort of...
We didn't have any double eagles, but we had two eagles! Peter MacKenzie and
Bill Marchant each carded terrific eagles on the second hole. This was a
straight par 5 with Out of Bounds running along the left side.
Large Spread in the first flight.
Ryan Tabibian finished 2 strokes in front of Peter MacKenzie and six strokes
ahead of Dave Webb. That's quite a sizeable spread between 1st and 3rd. Peter
MacKenzie had the day's second best net score (73) and finished alone in 2nd
place. Dave Webb scored the day's best gross score (81) and won in a tiebreaker
over yours truly.
Four-Way Tiebreaker determines Spoils of the Second flight - Again!
For the second consecutive tournament we've had 4-player tiebreakers to
determine the results of the second flight. At Alameda last month we had Charlie
Flowers, Ryan Tabibian, Bob Sternbach, and Marty Lorber all tied for second and
we had to use a series of tiebreakers to determine the results. As noted above,
Mark Siegel won the second flight at San Geronimo with a net 76, however there
were four players at net 77. The second flight has become our most competitive
flight. Placing second in this flight was Chris Brown. Chris was the winner of
the four-way tie. His god fortune might have come as a result of having
purchased a UCGC cap on the first tee, just before hitting the course. Of course
David Wherritt also purchased a cap on the first tee, but he placed 10th, so
there goes that theory. Placing third in the second flight was Kelly Alvarez. It
was good to see Kelly out there. He's been unable to play recently because of
his back. I guess the Chiropractor finally popped that spin back into place.
Ouch! But it seems to be working fine now, Kelly! What's his name? I could use a
little boost in my game too.
Metropolitan Marks New Term for Officers and Board
This is the last tournament for me as Club President, Webmaster, and Handicap
Chair. I created and authored the web site from June 1999 to present and took
over 7,000 photos. I'm quite proud to have been able to provide our members with
such a robust tool and lasting account of these past 5 1/2 years. I'll remain on
the board and likely return in a few years to former or partial service
capacities, but for the next few years I need to address some personal projects.
I'll continue orders for club shirts and caps and likely take photos, but I
can't guarantee the I'll have time to add photos to the site. I'll help transfer
my responsibilities. We've had several volunteers from folks who'd like to
participate in some club services. Curt David, Steve's Administrator, will be
joining the club and will take over as Handicap Chair. I'll get him up to speed
on that ASAP. Mike Armstrong will likely be our incoming President and so he'll
be producing the summaries. We've had several express interest in the webmaster
role and we may split the duties for that.
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