There are several golf events at our new course, Tullymore. The BIG event of the year is the member/guest held each July. It’s called The Prestige. My son, David, and I played last weekend.
The format was straight forward. There were thirty-six two-man teams. The thirty-six were assigned to one of six flights determined by the two players’ combined handicaps. Each team played a nine-hole match against the other five teams in their flight. We played one nine-hole match on Thursday, followed by two nine-hole matches on Friday and Saturday.
The official scoring procedure was as follows:
One Best Ball of Two Matches
*1 Point Per Hole
*Play will be handicapped off the low handicap in the foursome
*Strokes will be given as they fall on the card
*The team with the lowest net score on each hole wins 1 point
*If the hole is halved, each team receives ½ point
*Maximum of 6 points per team per nine-hole match
If you’re a golfer, you understand the rules. For non-golfers, everyone has a handicap based upon their recent golf scores. During normal play, a team could win all nine holes and expect to earn nine points. For this tournament, the club set a max win of six points per team, so everyone had a chance to earn some points and avoid a runaway winner. People are supposed to enjoy the competition and, if you’re blown out, it’s no fun.
After the completion of the five rounds, the winner of each flight played in a “shoot-out” to determine the overall winner. David and I had a say in the overall winner’s success.
It was rumored one of the teams in our flight had a “ringer”, a golfer who would beat all the competition. After three rounds of play, the team with the “ringer” who shot rounds of 35, 36 and 38 had earned seventeen of a possible eighteen points. They were, indeed, blowing away the competition.
While David and I had no chance of winning our flight, we did beat the leaders in our fourth match. They ended our nine-hole match with three and a half points to our five and a half. During the final round, the ultimate flight winner beat them by the same score to secure the flight championship by a half point. If Dave and I hadn’t upset the leaders, they couldn’t have been beaten. We did, so they were.
Our flight’s winners went on to win the shoot-out, thus becoming the 2022 Prestige Champions.
The day after the completion of our golf tournament, we headed to Grand Rapids to watch Brady’s basketball team compete in a tournament. They had played Friday and Saturday with mixed results. We saw them win three games on Sunday and earn first place in their division. Winning is fun to watch.
Friday of this week, Ruth and I drove to Fort Wayne, Indiana to watch Brady’s team compete in another basketball tournament. The teams in this tourney were bigger and stronger than last week. The first team they faced reminded me of the storm troopers of Star Wars fame. Each player was bigger and stronger than the last. Brady’s team was blown away. They didn’t fare much better in the second game. The final score was closer, but they still lost.
I flashed back to last week’s golf tournament while watching Brady’s team go down. They could have given up and walked away, but they didn’t. In spite of odds against them, they did the best with the tools they had. Last week worked well, this week was a different story.
Life is full of obstacles. We don’t always achieve the goals we set for ourselves. David and I knew we couldn’t win the golf tournament, but we still strove to do our best. In the process we impacted the outcome of the entire event.
Brady’s team had mixed results during their two tournaments, but they played on. Staying the course served everyone well.