GAP (Philly) Matches - how'd we get so lucky?

[Dan Herrmann]

Just got our bracket for the '07 GAP matches.  Our #2 team got Manufacturers, Lehigh, and Overbrook.   Makes you realize just how good golf course architecture abounds in metro Philly when you see these courses in our little bracket.

Here's the entire schedule:  http://www.gapgolf.org/gtmSched.asp?id=16&pid=2

Do any other associations have GAP type matches?  I for one love playing in them.

(So - when are those guys from PV going to play in the matches )

[JohnV]

Nice.  Looks like you'll have a lot of guys trying to make team #2.

Here in Western PA we don't do matches, but various clubs join together to form leagues of 4 or more clubs.  We invite the winners of the leagues to an event at the end of each season.

The league most would like to get into is Oakmont, Fox Chapel, Pittsburgh Field Club and Longue Vue.  They have been playing together for at least 80 years.

Northern California has a big team event where each club sends a team.  It is played as a series of zone qualifiers that are held at Spyglass and Poppy Hills with the winners advancing to the finals that are also held there.

[mike_malone]

 There is always a classic matchup like Sakima #1 against Merion #2.  I believe Sakima is nine holes and they bring hotdogs for the day. I would love to see how they decide on their away team.


    I hope to get to Doylestown this year to see what is left of Flynn there.

[D_Malley]

good luck if you have an afternoon game at a course which hosted GAP matches in the morning.  it usually means 5-6 hour rounds.

[Kyle Harris]

Perhaps even more special is the fact that our local muni, the venerable and elite Warminster's Five Ponds Golf Club has a one team in Dividion D and another in Division F.

Of course, they couldn't become full members of the GAP when my handicap was kept there and my index was a 3.8.

They also get to travel to Huntingdon Valley and CC of Scranton.

By the way, scoring for these things requires a graphing calculator and some Lorenz transformations.

Each final score ends with: "QED"

[wsmorrison]

Interesting that some of the courses that allow carts are listed as walking only.  I guess they are encouraging the use of caddies by away players.

Some of the GAP clubs are pretty far apart.  I would guess that some teams have a hard time finding players to travel such distances as to Wildwood, NJ or Fleetwood, PA.  While on the 2nd team at my old club, I'm not sure I could make a team at my new club....I don't see a 4th team  

Mike Malone,

If you go to Doylestown, I can clue you in on what is left of Flynn and what is Gordon and Blaukovitch.

[Dan Boerger]

I've lost my share of GAP matches over the years, but I have never had anybut a terrific time at all the clubs I've played. Rounds can be long, weather iffy, but it exemplifies to me what I really like about golf: competition, comraderie, and at the end of a day we toast to each other - win or lose. A great way to start the season, and I'm surprised it's (the format) not more popular in other places.

[archie_struthers]

 


The GAP matches are pretty unique. Lots of great courses and good competition.

How about Merion, Huntington & Saucon Valley, Galloway, Lehigh, Lancaster, Manufacturers. Philly CC, Whitemarsh,
Rolling Green et al just for starters. Pretty tasty!

[Dan Herrmann]

or Applebrook, Stonewall, Moselm Springs, White Manor, Lu Lu, and Aronimink?

Personally, I like the fact that public courses with clubs are part of the fun, although given the chance, I'd rather play Aronimink than Downingtown

[Karl Bernetich]

Boston area had interclub matches ... but I don't know the exact format or extent.

Why I know ... at least I thought it was funny.  I grew up caddying and one day on a whim I walked over to Wellesley CC (it's across the street from Babson where I was taking MBA classes and I could walk over from my house in Needham) and asked if I could loop -- AND play on Mondays.  Asst pro said we'll see, but you have to work for a while before we let you play on Mondays.  So I grabbed my paper and waited on the bench.  The other caddies got out (I expected that) and a team match between Charles River and Wellesley came up.  GAP type format if I recall.  I was the last caddy and the Wellesley guys wanted a caddy but the Asst pro said I was new (I guess they heard beginner) so the home team took a cart.  The Charles River guys wanted a caddy so I got their bags.  The course was pretty well marked so I was able to give them good yardages and we talked thru their shot which gave them a bunch of confidence.  Charles River won the match like 6&5.  Moral of the story – take a caddy and a good one will save you strokes.

I just remember the to members irate at the asst. pro for giving the other team "that caddy" instead of them ...

The 2 guy from CR were great and asked why I was caddying.  I said really just to play on Mondays.  They said come loop at CR and you can play on Mondays.

Later, one of the guys from Wellesley asked me the same question and I said ... really just to play on Mondays, but your pros says I have to be here a while before he let's me out.  I think I'm gonna go over to CR.  The member walks away and a few minutes later the asst. pro (sheepishly walks up to me) and says, "if I want to loop, you can play on the next coming Monday."  (Wonder what the member said to him ?)

So I looped and got to play CR and Wellesley for a couple years.

[Doug Braunsdorf]

I was hoping Lederach would have fielded a team for this spring's GAP Matches; I think this course would be fun to play matchplay competition over.  

Perhaps I can take the Kyle Harris position at Five Ponds

[Tom Huckaby]

NCGA does club team matches, and they are a lot of fun.  Unfortunately for a guy like me though, they group courses like for like... that is, munis with munis, high-end publics with high-end publics, privates with privates... so my hopes to be in a group with MPCC or Cypress Point just can't come true.... BUT... if your team makes the playoffs, that all goes out the window.  So one can EARN a match against a team like that.  Sadly also our team sucks and hasn't made the playoffs once in the 10+ years I've been doing this, but dare to dream.

Those GAP groupings are pretty darn cool anyway.

[ForkaB]

The Fife Golf Association has a long established Winter League, in which two groups (East and West) of two teams (scratch and handicap) of 12 or so clubs each play a series of matches between October and March.  The two winners in each group play each other for a Championship in March.  The courses involved range from the modest (Auchterderan) to the sublime (St. Andrews).  I played a match at the modest yesterday and it was sublime.  We tried a late afternoon summer series a few years ago, but it never took hold.  Too many alternative commitments--even in Fife.....

PS--Karl B.  My grandfather used to play in the Bostion twilight foursomes in the 20's, for Winchester.  I have a few clippings from the Boston Herald of some of those matches (golf was much more important in those days.......).

[TEPaul]

"Do any other associations have GAP type matches?  I for one love playing in them."

Dan:

I don't believe any other association has anything quite like the GAP Team Matches (used to be called the Suburban League Matches) in size and breadth relative to the size (member clubs) of GAP. It's probably over 4,000 players now.

First of all, GAP is the second oldest golf association in America (one year younger than the USGA) and these matches have been going on for over a century.

But we did run into something of a logistical problem in the last 20 years or so when the GAP decided to expand its geographical radius from 50 miles (from Penn's Hat) to 150 miles. You can see with a radius like that it is possible for two teams to have to travel almost 300 miles in a day and if that actually happened it became a real problem (say Lancaster GC had to play Atlantic City GC).

The other inherent problem with the matches since almost every club in the GAP participates in them (when I was on the GAP I think only about five clubs out of the app 110 member clubs did not participate) was that it took a new team that lets say was really good something like seven years to get from the bottom (where they had to start) to the top bracket as they pounded the beejeesus out of every team through the brackets on the way up. But they've sort of fixed that now and shortened it somehow.

There is no question, though, that the GAP Team Matches are the single biggest reason that clubs want to become a member of GAP. And again, I don't think there is anything quite like the GAP Team Matches in America.  

[Karl Bernetich]

PS--Karl B.  My grandfather used to play in the Bostion twilight foursomes in the 20's, for Winchester.  I have a few clippings from the Boston Herald of some of those matches (golf was much more important in those days.......).

Sorry I don't go that far back.  I guess I should had mentioned I was up there in the early 1990s.

... it is possible for two teams to have to travel almost 300 miles in a day and if that actually happened it became a real problem (say Lancaster GC had to play Atlantic City GC).

Given the chance to play Lancaster & ACGC, I'd drive it in a day.  In fact, Lancaster is in our bracket this year.  Wilm N(South is closed) and Aronimink -- pretty nice draw.

The other inherent problem with the matches since almost every club in the GAP participates in them (when I was on the GAP I think only about five clubs out of the app 110 member clubs did not participate) was that it took a new team that lets say was really good something like seven years to get from the bottom (where they had to start) to the top bracket as they pounded the beejeesus out of every team through the brackets on the way up. But they've sort of fixed that now and shortened it somehow.

Are they really able to do that ?  How ?  The team at Deerfield challanged into AA but then the bank closed the course and they forfited.  Most of the team went to a new club as a group but got bumped back into the D bracket.  1 team 1 year, added a second the next year into the E bracket, now we may add another team next year and I'm sure we'll start in the E.