5th Annual Midwest Mashie (Oct. 4-5th) Canterbury GC! - The Aftermath

[Jason Thurman]

Another outstanding Mashie is in the books. Thanks again to George and Bill for making everything happen. This continues to be one of my favorite weekends every year, and the tournament finally has a winning team that lives up to the standards of the championship itself. The sun has set on the West and risen on the East.

[C. Sturges]

Thank you Jason for Captaining the East to victory!   Thank you both George and Bill for setting this great weekend up.  And most importantly, Thank you Canterbury employees and members for making us all feel so welcome.
It was wonderful to meet new people and to put faces with names, along with seeing and playing with friends from past events.
Looking forward to next years Mashie!
chris

[Brian Finn]

What a great Mashie!  Huge thanks to Bill McKinley and everyone at Canterbury for welcoming and taking such good care of us all weekend.  Thanks to George Freeman for organizing another outstanding event.  Congratulations to Captain Thurman on leading us to victory...the first of many for the Big East. It was great fun seeing old friends and meeting several new ones.  Can't wait for 2015.

[Ryan Taylor]

Thanks Bill and George for organizing a great event at a special place. Congrats to Captain Thurman and the East for taking down the prohibitive favorite. Anyone else have trouble getting to those right hole locations on Sunday??

[Jason Thurman]

Chris, Ryan, thanks but the congratulations belongs to you and the rest of the East players. We joke about the pod system, but the East team is full of guys who have now known each other for several years and the camaraderie is real. Surviving a life-or-death situation together, as Finn and I did when we got stuck in a malfunctioning funicular as a derecho rolled in on Friday forges a strong bond. I don’t know that Eastern kinship contributed anything to our victory, as there’s a real kinship we share with a lot of the West teamers too. It was great to redeem myself a bit against George in our slugfest for a half point on Sunday, and playing against Criss in our personal Battle for Mt. Airy in Saturday’s fourball match along with Ken and Eric was a treat. I hope I learned something from Devin’s short game while playing alongside the international battle between him and Ben Cowan on Sunday, as mine was positively Barkleyesque next to his. Cowan still ground out a crucial East point and kept the conversation going. The worst part about the Mashie may be that there aren’t enough rounds to team up with everyone you’d like to play with. Well, that and the sleet.

For the next year, the wall in my office where the Midwest Mashie will be mounted is every East teamer's wall. If any of you happen to pass through Cincinnati, feel free to stop in and revel in how we made history together. On a course that boasts winners like Nicklaus, Palmer, Hagen, and O’Meara, you can now add the following names:

Ben Cowan
Brian Finn
Ken Fry
Al Fuente
Mark Jackson
Bill Steele
Chris Sturges
Ryan Taylor
Jason Thurman

I’ve gotta say, the Cowan Grill has a nice ring to it.

[BHoover]

Thanks to Bill, George and Jason for their hard work in getting the event organized and the pairings put together, and to the Canterbury staff, caddies and members for making us all feel welcome at their club.

Congratulations to the East team for a hard-fought and well-deserved victory.  But I would be remiss in not expressing some frustration that those of us who were outcast from the East in the interest of enabling the West to field a team are the forgotten victims here.  We are the red-headed stepchildren of the East--forced to compete on a team that isn't our own and cast aside by our victorious East brethren.  I ask you, when you celebrate East's victory, think of us who have been unable to share in the glory.

[David Royer]

I want to share my thanks for making my first Mashie so enjoyable.  Special thanks to George and Bill for making it possible.  A special thanks to Tony my caddie for an enjoyable two days.  Thanks to all the veterans for making a newcomer feel at home. 

Mr. Hoover, are you a believer ?... Go Browns!

[Russ Arbuthnot]

Super huge thanks to Bill and George for setting up and executing this year's Mashie, my first. Bill is a consummate professional, and George, my four-ball partner, made sure I never had to sweat.

Thank you to all the members and staff at Canterbury for allowing us to visit their wonderful club. Everything from the course, to the locker room, to the grill, to the dining hall and dinner, was top-notch. I hope that I will someday return—and get another crack at the fearsome 15th!

To all the members of GCA in attendance—it was great to meet everyone, put faces to names, and to see several guys again. A special word of thanks to my patient playing partners: The time shared walking those fairways, in the footsteps of the game's greats, will not be forgotten.

Congrats to the East team, even though almost all of us would've been on the real East team. So in the end, we all won!

[Ken Fry]

I'll echo the thank yous and accolades.

Thanks Bill McKinley for organizing the weekend and making everyone feel at home.  The staff treated everyone like a member.  Canterbury has incredible history and really added to the experience this past weekend.

Thanks to George Freeman for spearheading another successful Mashie and Jason Thurman for being the East Team's Paul Azinger.

What I enjoy most about the Mashie is meeting new guys and catching up with the old.  Regardless of team or hometown, each man is fun to play 18 with, have dinner with and have a drink with.

Thanks guys.  Looking forward to 2015 already.

Ken

[George Freeman]

Big thanks to Bill and Canterbury Golf Club for their awesome hospitality!  What a great place.  Great seeing everyone and meeting some new faces.

Proof of the East's win (finally)

Unfortunately it doesn't really count because I was the only true Westerner - so really they just beat themselves...

Great dinner at the club


High class event!

[Mark Smolens]

I'd been regretting my decision to stay home for the Northwestern vs. Wisconsin game rather than traveling for this year's Mashie, but much to Mr. Moore's chagrin I have to say I now like my decision.

Congrats to the East for their inaugural victory 

[Michael Marzec]

Kudos, indeed, to George for leading the way on the 2014 Mashie and to Captain Bill for his valiant efforts to lead Team East 2 against Team East 1. We may have fallen short, but we acquitted ourselves well for a team that was largely a bunch of rookies.

Bill was a gracious host and Canterbury was a fitting venue, which withstood the rain to provide a reasonably fast course. Hand up if you putted off at least one green over the weekend!

Thanks to my Day 1 partner, Brian Hoover, and opponents Ben Cowan and Ryan Taylor. Great company and gentlemen with whom I expect to play many more rounds.

Thanks to Chris Sturges, who kept me amused with crazy stories through the round (ask him about the dead guy...) and envious of all the courses he has played (70 this year alone!). Watch for his Confidential Guide to Cleveland Munis at a bookstore near you. (Are there any Sturges 10s?)

And thanks as well to Dave Royer and Ken Fry, who battled alongside Chris and I in the wind and cold on Sunday, though after seeing his drives, I think Fry needs to be tested prior to next year's competition for PEDs...

Congrats to Team East 1 for winning this intrasquad scrimmage. If they will have me next year, I would be honored to play for the Real West. I may live in Cleveland, but I am West to to the bone.

[BCowan]

Bill and George did a wonderful job putting together this great event.  The course, the caddies, and the staff were outstanding.  It was great meeting new faces and seeing friends.  It was nice to finally get a win. 

[Erik Mosley]

Really enjoyed being welcomed by a great group of guys - this was my first GCA outing and definitely won't be the last (although it's hopefully the last with sleet)!  Thanks to everyone who put this together - what a fantastic course.  The course conditions were incredible considering the time of year, and I only had one issue with the difficult setup - the magnet on number 12 that somehow pulled Jason's ball back into the hole after it slammed into the back of the cup and popped out onto the other side.  Criss and I had some momentum going into this hole, and somehow the magnet didn't work for our putts, so it was just a killer. 

It was great to meet you all - can't wait for the next one!

[Criss Titschinger]

Wow. That's really all I have to say after this past weekend.

I know I'm one of the few on this board who haven't played a course of that quality, but I'm still blown away from the whole experience.

First and foremost, thanks to Bill and the staff at Canterbury. Top notch operation all the way around. Couldn't have been more accommodating. Course was in phenomenal shape.

Next thanks go to all my playing partners. I'm sorry I chose a very bad weekend to forget how to play golf, and I appreciate your patience as I suffered a complete mental breakdown. Erik especially for being a great teammate on Saturday. Should've got one back on 18 to continue that match, but c'est la vie. That putt Thurman holed at 12, as Erik described below, was one of the damnest things I've ever seen on a golf course.

Final thanks goes to Ken Fry, who volunteered to work with me on the range Saturday night. The tips helped, but I couldn't bring them to the course Sunday. Keeping my them in my notebook though.

Yes, all the driving back and forth probably didn't help. Something I'll keep in mind for upcoming Mashies.

Hope to see you all again soon!

[George Freeman]

Look who we found in the Canterbury Grill Room:


Zoomed in:

[JLahrman]

Any pictures of the actual course? Ran has a profile up but I'd love to see more.

[Brent Hutto]

Look who we found in the Canterbury Grill Room:

Yeah, that Mike Bender is a heckuva player 

[Jason Thurman]

George, I think the Instagram filter you applied to that photo threw the colors off. Here it is with the filter removed:

[Michael Marzec]

Any pictures of the actual course? Ran has a profile up but I'd love to see more.

I managed a few action shots on both days that give a little hint of the course. Unfortunately, they are limited to 3 holes, but they give a good sense of the tumbling fairways and blind tee shots. The par 3 17th is a great one-shotter and a bear from the tees we played. No idea how it is listed as just the 14th handicap hole.

1. Brian Hoover showing great form from the right rough on No. 13 (Par 5, 480 yards)



2. Ben Cowan taking dead aim with his third shot into No. 13



3. Ryan Taylor striping a tee shot on No. 14 (Par 4, 370 yards)



4. Dave Royer tackles the intimidating tee shot on No. 17 (Par 3, 197 yards)



5. Same shot, featuring Chris Sturges (and part of my thumb)



6. Ken Fry keeps a close eye on his drive on No. 18 (Par 4, 401 yards)



And, lest any of our Sunday group be accused of riding a cart on this magnificent course, that was left when they drove us out for the shotgun start! They were preparing to take our clubs in when we decided to play the 18th one more time.

Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the sleet...

[Criss Titschinger]

Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the sleet...

Ask, and ye shall receive. Those white dots are sleet.

[Ryan Taylor]

More pics:

Hole 6 (approach) - Short par 5. Reachable in two if you find the fairway off the tee. Scary approach shot with this front-middle right pin set over the bunker.




Hole 15 (tee) - One of the best par 4's on the course. Down and up par 4. 3 wood, 5 wood or hybrid lay-up off the tee. Uphill and blind approach from the left fairway. I assume the green is more visible from the right fairway which requires a more aggressive line off the tee. (I came in from the left) Looks like trees have been removed down the left side.

[Josh Tarble]

It's 15 degrees in Indy today, I'm still bummed that I missed this Mashie and I'd like something to talk about/look forward to.

So, was wondering if there was any chatter about the 2015 Mashie location?

[BCowan]

Josh,

   As you can see the sleet on the photo before, I suggested to George, ''How about Greywalls Mashie in August''    Thoughts?   

[Josh Tarble]

I think that would be a treat, just have to figure out how to get there.  Long drive from Indy.

But plenty of courses along the way and Greywalls looks spectacular.