2002 Summer Heat

Hastily rescheduled at the Trout Club, the Summer Heat lived up to its name on August 3rd with a sweltering 94 degree sunny, humid day. The up and down terrain of the course wilted many competitors and pushed the field average of non-winners to five over par net. Somehow though, perhaps due to planetary alignment, Vince managed to navigate a ball around the course in 84 strokes for a net 65 that was good enough to win the 2002 Summer Heat by seven strokes. Vince's round abounded with good karma that manifested itself most clearly in the 14 one putts on the Trout Club's challengingly slow greens.

Here are the 2002 Summer Heat scores: Vince 65/84   John 72/85   Jeff 73/88   Bob 75/90   Steve 76/88   Richard 78/98   Scott B. 82/96 ... recall that Bob won the 2000 Summer Heat with a 63/79!

Despite the fact that the winning score of 84/net 65 was also the low gross in the field and would have won if Vince's Course Handicap was 12 instead of 19, a storm of criticism blew in after the round purporting that the USGA Handicap System is unjust. The debate continued at Tuesday's Golf Meeting and while some may never be satisfied, golf pundits unanimously agree that the USGA Handicap System is biased in favor of the low handicapper. To educate yourself on the subtleties of the System, I urge you to read an article in the July 2002 Golf Magazine titled Are You Being Cheated By The Handicap System? Still not convinced? Read this article at the Pope of Slope's website. Dean Knuth brought the Slope Rating to golf during his tenure as the Senior Director of the USGA's Handicap Department. Still not convinced? You must be a consipiracy theorist and well beyond help. Sorry.

Mother Nature Reveals Dark Side

Mother Nature frowned upon the CMGC Saturday by thoroughly soaking Deer Creek and forcing the tournament to be halted and eventually rescheduled. The well attended event saw only three holes completed by the first group before the heavens opened. Perhaps She was simply commenting on our decision to move the event from its original 2002 home at Crystal Springs? I'm leaving this photo of Mother Nature up since nobody commented on it yet.

The mojo was bad from the first tee shot as the rain started shortly after the traditional tee flipping. On reflection, most agreed that we exhibited poor judgement in teeing off at all. Rolling thunder echoed among the dark clouds enveloping the course. The conditions were made surreal by the bright skies immediately north of the course and the prospect for the storm to "blow over." My rain gauge showed 2.4" before it was over that day.

The topic of rescheduling the tournament commenced at the July 31st Golf Meeting and while the minutes are quite accurate, they do not reflect the unprecedented depth and tenor of the discussion that followed. The votes were cast and the debate ended 48 hours later with the ratification of the averaged rankings in the chart at right. Thank you to all members for getting your votes cast in a timely manner. After all the angst, coffee, and countless paragraphs of e-mail text, I can only reflect on the similarity between the complexity of the issue and the complexity of the game itself. The rescheduled 2002 Summer Heat will be this Saturday, August 3rd at the Trout Club. Tee times begin at 7:30 am. See you there.

Send questions about this website to our webmaster.