Earning First but taking home Second

It’s bittersweet. But mostly sweet. I’m just glad to bring home a plate.

Here’s the story:

Every year, the president of the golf club I’m in plays in the SCGA Affiliate Team Championship tournament. Every year, he takes a different person to be his partner. (He jokes that he can’t get the same person to play with him more than once – and he is quite a character.) It’s a two-day event for any SCGA Affiliate golf club that wants to send a team to represent them to compete for the title. The first day is a two-person best ball (not to be confused with a scramble – you both play your full round and the best net score between you is the score you take on each hole). The second day is a modified Pinehurst format, where you each tee off then hit your partner’s ball for the second shot, then choose one ball and alternate hitting it until you hole out. It’s a much more difficult format than best ball and can really test a friendship.

Bruce, the prez, convinced me to play with him this year. He won the event in 2000 with a partner he had experience playing with in this format. He loves that plate. I mean LOVES it. I think he polishes it in a daily prayer. Other than that year, he hasn’t earned a trophy there in the rest of the 13+ years he’s participated. They give out plates to the top 5 teams. He desperately wanted another one. They are nice – I have one of my own from the only other SCGA event in which I’ve played. It’s shiny and pretty.

Day One

They gave Bruce 14 strokes and I got 18. On the first day, our scorecard showed me with a 91 and Bruce with a 92. Scores are kept by the other team in your foursome, and when we exchanged cards at the end of the round, we noticed the scorer had inverted a few of our individual hole scores but had the team net score correct based on the dinks we each got for the holes. Bruce and the scorer made corrections to the individual scores and we turned in our card knowing we shot a net 64. When the SCGA officials posted our score on the leaderboard, it said 65. We asked what was up and the official showed us the card. Hole 11 is a par 5 on which I got a stroke but Bruce did not. Our scores showed me with a 7 and him with a 5 but we had a 4 in the net column, so the official had adjusted it to a 5, increasing our score by one stroke. Well, that was MY hard-fought scrambling par with a dramatic one-putt that dropped in on an agonizing final revolution. Oh no! We had missed a correction on one of those inverted scores! So I actually shot an 89 and Bruce shot 94 and our net score really was 64. Thankful they didn’t DQ us for turning in an incorrect card, we accepted the erroneous 65 and hoped it didn’t come down to one stroke. There were five teams with lower scores.

Day Two

Low scores are rare in this format and we figured we’d be in good shape if we finished at 2 or 3 under. We played really well as a team, and if one of us hit a bad shot the other one made up for it on the next one. My putting was in rare form and what I call my “all day long zone” which is usually anything within 5 feet extended to 10 feet. I was draining ’em. I had a confidence standing over putts that I’ve never had before. We finished at 6 under which was the best score of the day, with a 66. Obviously in this format there were no individual hole scores but we checked and rechecked our card a gazillion times before turning it in. No discrepancies.

Our total two-day score was posted as a 131 instead of the 130 it should have been. We waited and watched as we enjoyed the banquet and the SCGA officials updated the board as cards came in. One of the teams with a 62 on the first day shot a 68 on the second, for a total of 130. Damn! It came down to one stroke! They card-off for ties in all places but first, in which case they give co-champion titles. We tied for first place but had to accept 2nd. We got up and graciously accepted our 2nd place plates. I had thoughts of hitting the scorekeeper of the first day over the head with my plate but I knew I had to accept that it was our own fault. We had every opportunity to fix the mistake and just missed it.

We learned our lesson and while disappointed to have the smaller second place trophies, we still felt great leaving there with plates at all and felt really good about the way we played. We’ll always know we tied for first and at least Bruce got his plate and I have more hardware for my own trophy collection, which now includes 14 pieces.

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