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Every year at the Townsend Cup tournament I have found something to write a short story about. In previous years, I have not had b even think about a subject because of something had happened that in my mind was significant. This year I have had to stretch a We and decided to cower a subject that is part of the lure of the tournament that we embrace. It is so much of the lure that we find that anything we do to Improve the tournament tends to result in increased whining. Are we a culture of habitual whiners? Certainty rat! We usually have a legitimate point to express and do so to a body that is tempered to expect some controversy and treats it as noise level rejection of the presentation of the tournament (A.k.a. whining).
This year's tournament is a case in point. In order to reduce the whining of the "A" player of years, a plan was implemented where the leaders of the tournament after the first day would play from the gold fees, the nerd group from the bares, the nerd from the whites and the final from the reds. This made for some interesting ploy but it caused some problem in the competition for the day money for low nets, skins, closest to the pins and other areas. You can guess the result- more whining. I personally enjoyed the challenge of playing from the Gold tees every day but my scoring suffered as evidenced by the net 77s and 75. However I felt that I could have played better as I made at least two stupid errors on the 16th hole on one round when I hit my tee shot over the water but it rolled back in.
It was about 6 inches under the water and Jack Reeves said he was going to remove the ball and thought he should wait because he thought I might like to hit it out of the water. Just what I needed - a challenge! I looked at the shot and remembered that when you address a boll in the water, the club should be above the bell slightly, as the action of the club going through the water would bring the club down. I took a mighty swing but couldn't more the ball. After drying myself off and much discussion it was determined that I should take the bell out of the hazard to the other side of the water and hit from there to the green, which I did. With two puts I finally put the bat into the tale. This resulted in 6 strokes, 1 for tee shat, 1 for swing in hazard, 1 for penalty stroke, 1 for hitting on the green and 2 puts. Driving to the nerd tee discussion between Jack and Brent Griebling indicated that addressing the bal under water surface Is considered grounding the club in a hazard and results in a two-stroke penalty (This was confirmed by the rulebook). So in addition to the 6 strokes, 2 were added for a total of 8 for the per 3 and another net 77 for that day. Oh! What might have been?
I feel that the tee changing is a good thing but pieces a significant penalty on the player that is obviously playing well and is prevented in participating in the day money on an even basis. I would Ike to see the same format continued but feel that day money should be awarded to those players that are playing from the more difficult tees. I think for the weeklong tournament, the best player showed up. Roy (Wah) Swartwood was the best player by far for the week.
Another twist to the whining this week was the imposition of a $5.00 fine for various offenses (one of which was calling Roy, Roy instead of Wah). Another was coming to the daily meeting late (more whining). Also the *Gs had initiation tasks to perform to assist the tournament veterans such as washing their ball before putting, holding and removing the flag, and raking the sand traps. I won't even go into the fines that were imposed associated with the failure to perform these assigned tasks. Thanks to these fines, we had plenty of beer money.
The Townsend Cup was closely contested this year and won with a very small margin. I personally witnessed two matches played by the Millett brothers that decided the tournament for the iced Team at the lost hole of the final day 18 hole singles matches.
Karl Reid
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