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San Mateo County Times Rant
THuckaby2:
Gib - what school? Burlingame HS?
Down in SoCal there were some GREAT teams. As you'd imagine, Pacific Palisades HS was always tough - home course Riviera. We played them all four years and beat them once there. Quite a few pros came out of our Catholic school league also. Then there was Duffy Waldorf at the rival public school next door... My best team at the illustrious all-boys CRESPI HS finished T3rd in CIF Southern Section. That might not sound like much, but look up how huge Southern Section is and what area is covered.
We were certainly never six assassins though.. six screwups who drank too much and had too much fun, yes. Assassins? No.
As I say, glory days..... ;D
THuckaby2:
We did 5 scores out of six... and getting under 200 was good playing. Our low was 176, I remember that one very well... just a freakish day... one guy shot a 31 for 9 holes (par 36) and everyone else was near par...pretty easy course called Rio Hondo (Tommy has played it I know)... 195 or so was more normal for us. And 195 would win most of the time.
Interestingly, we did only one year of stroke play like that - my senior year. All prior years were a very cool team match play thing... 5 points in each group... 2 for head to head each guy, one for better ball match with partner... all match play, 9 hole matches...15 total points. You wanna talk pressure? Every stroke was meaningful, very little time to erase deficits. And being in the last group with the overall team match on the line? Man I remember shaking when that happened. Won some, lost some. Damn that was a fun format.
TH
ps - re being drunks, well... you went to a Catholic school, as did I. No more need be said. ;D
Rick Shefchik:
I recently wrote a story about inner-city tennis in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and there might be some interesting parallels to what could happen in golf.
The inner-city tennis programs are booming in the Twin Cities, for two reasons:
1. The programs are incredibly cheap (something like $40 for six weeks of lessons and matches, and if you can't or won't pay, you don't have to.)
2. Suburban parents who grew up playing tennis are hauling their kids into town to take advantage of the programs. Although the programs were designed to kindle interest in the game on the part of the kids who actually live in the inner cities, they are largely ignoring the game, as always; meanwhile the demographic that has always played tennis is filling the void, and taking advantage of the deals.
The parallels with golf, it seems to me, are these: the game is being passed on from golfing parents to their children, but it isn't pulling in many, if any, converts from non-golfing families. And golf faces an even tougher challenge than tennis in terms of access and affordability.
THuckaby2:
--- Quote from: Shivas on May 11, 2005, 11:37:37 AM ---Somewhere in HS, we switched from 4 out of 6 to 4 out of 5, but I dont' remember when. The coaches, however, usually brought 8 guys to play, and just designated who was going to count for the 6 or the 5. 2 or 3 guys didn't count, and were playing for experience. How bad is that? Not even counting on a dork team -- a sub-dork! ;D
--- End quote ---
We had a version of that also... 6 guys counted, but a 7th also always came along and those guys played with the coaches! Oh yes, sub-dork for sure.
But it's funny how #7 was always damn better than #8... we carried 8 on the team. Poor #8 didn't even get to go to the matches. Subbest of sub-dorks that guy was.
;D
Gib_Papazian:
We played 18 hole matches with 5 of 6 , which is far better than today because there is time to catch a guy who comes out of the chute draining bombs.
I do not mean to say we were all GREAT players, just that we always seemed to play well enough to win regardless of what the other team did.
My partner Mark Young and I always played in the 3-4 spot; the one time they put me with Nathaniel Crosby we barely squeaked out a win against two chops.
I remember one match we were getting crushed on the front nine at Crystal Springs by a couple kids from Aragon High. NOBODY beat us on our home course. One of their guys made a snide remark on the way to the 10th tee.
We got so pissed Mark shot 34 (2 under) on the back and I finished par-birdie-eagle-birdie-par (33) to wax those two assholes by 18 shots. They were so intimidated one started hitting it OB and the other got a case of the laterals.
It bothers me that I never get on those crazy runs as an adult. That used to happen to me a lot - with persimmon woods and soft golf balls. . . . . youth is more of an advantage than technology.
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