Highlites of the Year

[Tom Huckaby]

Since you guys are entering into a bet that essentially is a barter transaction, do note that one week of Huckaby posting is about 100 banner impressions (which does have a certain monetary value in the realm of internet advertising)

That thought had occurred to me - look at it like the reverse of me and Mucci if we're talking $$$$.  But that's OK, heck, it's not likely I will be posting any banners.

 

[Jay Flemma]

JT:

Forget the movie, you have two guys here who have practically memorized the book.  We have been staging our own version of "The Name of the Rose" here at GCA with RJ being the intrepid Brother William and myself responding as Ubertino of Casale.  Bill McBride is, of course, Bernard Gui.  Some heretic conned brother william into showing up as guest of a fictional member of Yeaman's Hall and now he is being sought deep in the most inaccessible recesses of the Aedificium.

William!  I bet you anything the scoundrel is holed up in the "Finis Africae" spreading poison all over the pages of Tom Doak's Second Volume of "The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses!"  That's what this was all about.  Just like they didn't want you near Venantius' desk to seek for the Aristotle, now they send you to SC to keep you away from the second Volume of Doak - "the book thought lost or never written" and of which this insidious culprit may hold the only copy.  We must find him!  To the library!

[Bill_McBride]

JT:

Forget the movie, you have two guys here who have practically memorized the book.  We have been staging our own version of "The Name of the Rose" here at GCA with RJ being the intrepid Brother William and myself responding as Ubertino of Casale.  Bill McBride is, of course, Bernard Gui.  Some heretic conned brother william into showing up as guest of a fictional member of Yeaman's Hall and now he is being sought deep in the most inaccessible recesses of the Aedificium.

William!  I bet you anything the scoundrel is holed up in the "Finis Africae" spreading poison all over the pages of Tom Doak's Second Volume of "The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses!"  That's what this was all about.  Just like they didn't want you near Venantius' desk to seek for the Aristotle, now they send you to SC to keep you away from the second Volume of Doak - "the book thought lost or never written" and of which this insidious culprit may hold the only copy.  We must find him!  To the library!

Who the hell is Bernard Gui?  

[Jim Thompson]

Brother Gui was the head of the Inquisition who had recently taken Brother Williams place due to his heavy handed tactics.

[Bill_McBride]

Brother Gui was the head of the Inquisition who had recently taken Brother Williams place due to his heavy handed tactics.

Excellent!  

[mike_beene]

Getting older the highlights seem to repeat:My annual Pinehurst trip with perfect weather and my BelAir 27 hole marathon with the Little Pro looking as good as ever.I blew my promise to myself of Scotland once a year for the rest of my life.Catching up will be fun.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Bob as usual you are correct. It would appear aspects of grammer and sentence construction were missing in public education in Monroe Louisiana.

[Jim Thompson]

Jay,

For fun I tried to cast the GCA version of The Name of the Rose.  How would you have done it?  To help you recall here's a list with photos:


Adso de Melk played by Jordan Wall


Séverin played by Joe Hancock


Bernardo Gui played by Bill McBride


Un moine played by Andy Troeger


Jorge de Burgos played by Tom Paul


Remigio da Varagine played by David Wigler


Michele da Cesena played by Tom Doak


Cardinal Bertrand played by Pat Mucci


Berenger played by Tommy Nacarrato


L’abbé played by George Bahto


Salvatore played by Dave Schmidt OK I know it should be Barney


William de Baskerville played by RJ Daley


Venantius played by Tom Huckaby


La fille played by Sasha of Bandon fame


Hugh de Newcastle played by Ian Andrew


Malachie played by Tom Macwood


Ubertino de Casale played by Jay Flemma

[Tom_Doak]

Phew.  It has been a pretty good year.

I enjoyed spending my time out on great sites in Montana and Scotland with my crew.  Also, finishing up rounds in the dark at North Berwick on a couple of occasions was great fun; we don't get to play golf enough, but when we do, we enjoy every last minute of the daylight.

We opened three pretty good golf courses this year, too:  Ballyneal, Sebonack, and Tumble Creek.  Got to play one with Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the second with Jack Nicklaus, and the third with Jordan Wall    which is even more ridiculous than it sounds.

Best of all, we are working on a lot of cool new projects, only some of which are public knowledge at this point.

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tom,

You're consistent reference to those projects you're not allowed to tell the public about is aggrevating  

[Mike Nuzzo]

Building a good working and personal relationship with Don Mahaffey while building Wolf Point Club.

The old course forwards and backwards was a treat as well.

Cheers

[Cory Lewis]

My year isn't over yet as I'm currently planning a trip to Florida to visit a fellow GCA'er and play Mountain Lake for the first time, hopefully play a few other courses along the way, but here is my year so far, what a great year!

Overall my highlight was getting married in October, at least that's what the wife tells me, but I'll focus on the golf

In January I took an amazing trip where I discovered the golf courses of Hilton Head, highlights were Long Cove, Secession, and Colleton Dye.  Then I undertook the drive to play TPC for the first time, wow.  What a place.  I was blown away by what I was seeing when you consider when it was designed.  On the way home I had the pleasure of playing golf with Daryl Boe in his neck of the woods, Greenville, SC.  Later in the year I returned the favor, when I was able to enjoy a round with Daryl in Philly.  

The biggest golf highlight of the year was playing the site of the 2013 US Open with two GCA'ers, I am eternally grateful for the experience.  

The biggest surprise of the year was Gulph Mills, and what made it even better was getting to talk on the phone with the lord of GMGC about the architectual history after I played it.

Many thanks to Jason Mandel for organizing a welcome dinner for me when I moved to Philadelphia, and for all the Philly GCA'ers that came out.  A good time was had by all at Phil's.

I played golf with many GCA'ers this year.  So many I can't think of them all.  So I will just say thank you very much for a great experience on the golf course.

And finally I had the pleasure of meeting Ran Morrissett.  He makes this site possible, and he is a class individual all the way.  Thank you to Ran and everybody else that makes this site great.  Happy Holidays!!!!!!

[Andy Troeger]

I had quite a few good GCA experiences, but I'll save those for the other thread on new courses played this year.

Two other golf related ones that come to mind are...

1. Coaching my high school girls golf team. In our fifth season we finished 18-0, won our conference for the first time (which included a team having won 3 of the last 4 state finals) and advanced to the state finals where we finished 12th. It was especially memorable seeing that in our first two years our record was 7-37. Working with a wonderful group of young ladies was easily the most rewarding thing I've done, maybe ever.

2. Shooting 69 for the first time in 9 years at Blackthorn GC in South Bend. This came four days after trying to play with some of the other coaches at one of our tournaments. I managed to go par, double, X, double, tee shot into tree off end of tee...then quit and went to watch the girls win the tournament. In the 69 I hit 15 greens and the other three were over the green. Funny game...

[DTaylor18]

I am waiting to see Dan Taylor's highlights before I post mine. But playing with Huckaby is certainly at the top of my list.

Jim, this an easy one for me.  It was the look on your face after we played against your ringer team in the Member/Guest.  You guys dismantled us, but from the putt on 10 for the halve to the putt on 18 for the halve, your look of surprise was priceless for me!  

The highlight of my golfing life came last week when I made birdie on #16 at Cypress Point on my first ever visit to that magical place!

[Jim Franklin]

Come on Dan, let's see the list. Watching my partner and i win the low gross can't be your highlight .