Norm Ott
The SunBird Men’s Golf Association, a/k/a The Men’s Club kicks off the New Year each January with the exciting and popular Match Play Challenge. The match play format consists of two players playing against each other in a hole by hole contest. The winner of the most holes in the match is declared the winner and moves on to the next round.
The Match Play Challenge in the Men’s Club is a four week bracketed tournament. Players who sign up to play the first week are divided into six flights according to their handicaps. Each flight starts out with eight brackets, two players to a bracket. These two players, then, play a head to head match with the winner of the most holes moving on to a new bracket the following week.
The 2016 version of the challenge saw a total of 86 players sign up for the first week which was scheduled to be played on January 7; however, due to bad weather, the start of the challenge was postponed to January 14. Looking at the math, and in order to maintain the eight bracket format in each flight, all of the flights had at least one “bye.” The players with byes automatically moved on the next week. Following the first week of play, half of the field was eliminated. After play, each subsequent week, half of the field, still in the tournament, was eliminated down to the final week, where each of the flights had only two players remaining who then played each other for the flight championship. The champions and runners up, respectively, for each flight were Flight 1: Bob Schoenwald and Dean Huyghebaert; Flight 2: Cal MacPherson and Wes Akerman; Flight 3: Walt Griffin and Larry Schuster; Flight 4: Howard Anderson and Ray Bierowicz; Flight 5: Mel Flinkman and Dean Wilson; and Flight 6: Earl Ferguson and Bob Cordray
Players eliminated from the competition went on the play in regular Thursday tournaments the following weeks. The first place finishers in each tournament were:
1/21.Gross/Net Stroke Play – Flight 1 Gross: Jack Cooper 68; Net: Eric Gossling 60; Flight 2 Gross: Norm Ott 75; Net: Terry Leeper 56
1/28. Stableford Format – Flight 1 Gross: Gerry Tomlinson 38; Net: Rich Koshuta 58; Flight 2 Gross: Terry Leeper 24; Net: Gordon Olson 50
2/04. Gross/Net Stroke Play – Flight 1 Gross: Dick Tiffany 69; Net: Don Hunt 62; Flight 2 Gross: Dave White 71; Net: Dave Sims 59; Flight 3 Gross: Loren Carrel 73; Net: Russ Bower 61; Flight 4 Gross: George Richardson 75; Net: Frank Robertson 62; and Flight 5 Gross: Ray Fuller 83; Net: Gordon Kenyon 58
The next meeting of the Men’s Club will be Tuesday, March 1 at 9:00 a.m. in the Clubhouse Ballroom. For information about the club, contact Fred Garmeson at 480-895-9363.