[Joe Melchiors]

Buck and Melchiors are trying to work through scheduling issues...  Looks like it will probably be at Joliet CC or Chicago Highlands in the next week or so.


-Joe

[Bill Seitz]

As of now 4 matches have been completed:


Johnston def. Riefs 1up @ Glen Club
Sternberg def. Salmen 1up @ Ravisloe
Stockert def. Way 1up @ unnamed mystery location
Reese def. McCarthy 1up @ Ravisloe


Understandably few matches have been played as the weather has been pretty awful up until about a week ago.  Any other matches taking place in the near future?

We'll have two more to add on Sunday, with what looks like our first entry into the round of 16.  I'll be playing an afternoon match against the winner of Dolan and Fry's morning match.

[Peter Korbakes]

Johnston and I will have something in the books for either memorial day weekend or the 2nd week in June for sure

[Drew Groeger]

Max Sternberg and I have battled some scheduling issues of late but are slated to play Kankakee Elks some time in early-to-mid June.

[Peter Pratt]

Unfortunately, my opponent, Bob Garvelink, was injured in a car accident and had to forfeit our match. I hope to make it up to him later this summer, when he can play again.


Bob, hope you're mending well!


Peter

[Steve Green]

Looking forward to a match.

[JReese]

Unfortunately, my opponent, Bob Garvelink, was injured in a car accident and had to forfeit our match. I hope to make it up to him later this summer, when he can play again.


Bob, hope you're mending well!


Peter

Bob sorry to hear.....hope all those involved are OK

[Ken Fry]

In what began as a beautiful Chicago day, ended in what felt more like a November Chicago day.

Brendan Dolan, Bill Seitz and myself schemed to knock out the first two rounds of the bracket in one day.  Luckily we were able to accomplish it and play two outstanding Chicago courses at the same time:  Olympia Fields.

We started on the South course with Brendan and myself playing our first round match.  Smyers work and the progressive tree removal has made the South a special course.  The greens were challenging and enjoyable.  Quite frankly, we all felt that despite the pedigree of the North course, the South was the more enjoyable course to play.  With a solid mixture of both good and a bit of rusty golf from both Brendan and I, I pulled out the win.

Bill and I played our match on the North course, which was a sharp contrast to the South right from the first tee.  The bunker sand is much whiter than the sand on the South and the bunkers are much deeper.  The North is clearly prepped for "Championship" golf.  The clouds moved in and the wind began to blow making a hard course harder.  There's a lot to like around the North course.  I found the back nine to be significantly more interesting and what I felt was the best stretch of nine holes on the property.  Great holes like 3 and 14 didn't disappoint but I really liked the 13th, a nice little par 3 transition hole.  The cold wind and fatigue took it's toll on Bill and I and after a back and forth battle on the back nine, the match was decided by a coin toss.  Neither of us wanted to try to play another hole.  I won on the coin toss.

Olympia is a fantastic 1-2 punch.  The membership has two world class courses to play with different personalities.  Our group seemed to give the nod to the South course choice with 10 rounds going 7-3 to the South.

Ken

[George Smiltins]

Due to some scheduling issues, Michael George has forfeited his match to me.


George Smiltins

[Criss Titschinger]

The Bills/Engel/Titschinger bracket should have its rounds accounted for by June 8th, one way or another.

[Andrew Buck]

Melchiors and Buck scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

[Matt Bielawa]

Another round in the books.


Mr. Doak and I had a very nice afternoon at The Loop yesterday, which came through the winter in great shape.  The fescue is filling out beautifully and the greens are in tremendous shape.  We played clockwise, on the Black Course, and had a close match, which was all square through 14.  I was able to prevail with a 2&1 victory.  We both had some highlights and lowlights throughout the match, including Tom's birdie on #7 after displaying his ground-game mastery, getting his approach inside of five feet from 50+ yards out with a putter.

[Tom_Doak]

getting his approach inside of five feet from 50+ yards out with a putter.

That was actually a 5-iron chip shot!  I scrambled just well enough to prolong the inevitable.


Matt hit a lot more fairways than I did, and that was probably his key to victory.  That, and his 8-iron to the back pin position on the nasty Biarritz 16th green, which put him two up with two to go.


The Loop looked good.  Another highlight for me was seeing the two dogs walking with the threesome in front of us.  They're on my Instagram if anyone wants to look.

[Anthony Fowler]

Jim Colton and I played our match at Midlothian today, and Steve Salmen served as a third-party officiant. Neither of us brought our A games, but we had a great time, and I was able to just edge Jim out 2&1.


The course was a lot of fun and in good shape. Some of the greens are really fun, severe, strategic, and difficult to read. And there are probably a lot of holes that we would play differently if given another crack. One architectural highlight is the 9th. It's a 440 yard straightaway par 4. The green surface is not visible on the approach. At first glance, it might like it should be gettable, but the small green runs steeply left to right and front to back. You have endless room to bail out short and left, but that's the worst place to putt or chip from. You'd really like to challenge the trouble on the right side of the green since that's the best place to putt or chip from, but that takes some guts. And the green's so small that it's easy to come up short or long where you chances or saving par are slim.


Thanks Jim for a great match, and thanks Steve for joining us. I'm looking forward to the next round.

[C. Sturges]

George Smiltins and I played our match over the weekend at Westbrook CC. 


Westbrook CC is a very nice Ross course outside of Mansfield, Ohio.  I had it on my radar of future courses to play, but only knew it was a Ross course.  I know my expectations were blown out of the water.  We found and enjoyable routing, with small distances from green to tee, except a couple holes where back tournament tees have been added.  The bunker placement kept us on our toes with many located green side and a couple sitting short of green side, but you could not tell until you got closer.  And then there are the greens, which after a couple days of rain and how wet the fairways and rough were.  They rolled perfect!  and they kept on rolling! After playing all the holes I was no closer to figuring out the subtle breaks and not so subtle breaks. 


It is a course I am personally looking forward to seeing again and one I am surprised I have not heard more about.


I was able to win 1 up and look forward to playing with George again.


Thanks again for the game George!
chris

[Tom_Doak]

Westbrook CC is a very nice Ross course outside of Mansfield, Ohio.  I had it on my radar of future courses to play, but only knew it was a Ross course.  I know my expectations were blown out of the water. 

Chris:


Thanks for finding a course off the radar!  That's the spirit of this competition.


If I had made it past the first round, I was hoping to challenge my next opponent to meet at The Gailes GC in Oscoda, but I didn't have time to do it this week.  I've always been curious to see that course [and its sister which is supposedly modeled after Pine Valley], but I just haven't had a reason to make time for it.  Sometimes the courses right under our noses are the hardest to get to.

[JReese]

[Peter Korbakes]

Neil and I played on Sunday, we swept the dew and i respectfully conceded to Neil as I did not realize when I signed up I'd be abroad for a wedding later this summer.


the line 'play well, play fast. play poorly, play faster' was fully in effect. loved the walk

[Andrew Buck]

Melchoirs advances over Buck by forfeit due to scheduling conflict.

[Criss Titschinger]

Brad Engel unfortunately had to forfeit his match to Josh Bills due to injury.

Josh Bills and I had the pleasure of playing Springfield CC today for our match. Springfield is a Donald Ross course that really goes under the radar nationally, and even locally. I'm not really sure why, other than it not being in the metro area of one the large cities in Ohio. Despite that, I had pretty high expectations coming in thanks to Brian Hoover's great photo tour (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=58639.0). Those expectations were exceeded.

We had an absolutely perfect weather day, with temperatures in the high 60s to mid 70s during our round. The course hosted the U.S. Open Sectional Qualifier just three days ago, but thankfully the rough was cut down. The fairways and greens though were hummin', and proved quite a formidable challenge. However, this allowed me to play approach shots where I aimed to land short of the green, knowing the ball would roll up where I wanted. I don't get to experience shots like that every day, and it was fun to try them out here. I also got to do a putt from about 50 yards out on hole 1. Unfortunately, I hit it too hard and ended above the hole. Not the place to be at Springfield.

In the end, Josh beat me 4&3. I made it interesting on the back 9, but a couple clutch shots from Josh on 13 and 14 ultimately secured the win.

Thanks for setting this up! Gave me a great excuse to finally make it up to Springfield.

[Brad Engel]

Bummed that my "bum" knee forced me to concede yesterday, but glad it sounds like you guys had a great day at Springfield. Congrats to Josh on the win and looking forward to teeing it up in a "friendly" somewhere later this summer!


Brad

Brad Engel unfortunately had to forfeit his match to Josh Bills due to injury.

Josh Bills and I had the pleasure of playing Springfield CC today for our match. Springfield is a Donald Ross course that really goes under the radar nationally, and even locally. I'm not really sure why, other than it not being in the metro area of one the large cities in Ohio. Despite that, I had pretty high expectations coming in thanks to Brian Hoover's great photo tour (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?topic=58639.0). Those expectations were exceeded.

We had an absolutely perfect weather day, with temperatures in the high 60s to mid 70s during our round. The course hosted the U.S. Open Sectional Qualifier just three days ago, but thankfully the rough was cut down. The fairways and greens though were hummin', and proved quite a formidable challenge. However, this allowed me to play approach shots where I aimed to land short of the green, knowing the ball would roll up where I wanted. I don't get to experience shots like that every day, and it was fun to try them out here. I also got to do a putt from about 50 yards out on hole 1. Unfortunately, I hit it too hard and ended above the hole. Not the place to be at Springfield.

In the end, Josh beat me 4&3. I made it interesting on the back 9, but a couple clutch shots from Josh on 13 and 14 ultimately secured the win.

Thanks for setting this up! Gave me a great excuse to finally make it up to Springfield.

[BHoover]

I hate to do this, but I'm going to concede my match to Shane Wright. I don't know if we'd be able to play, so I'll concede.

[Josh Bills]

It was a great match, and luck was a large part of my win, including the bladed 9 iron on 9 that somehow I made par, the bunker save on 14 by making a 20 foot putt down hill, not the place to be.  The greatest evidence of greens being pretty quick, was my 4 putt on 10 when I all had to do is three putt to tie the hole. 


The course was a wonderful walk and the routing created a pleasant walk, except for the walk up to the tee on 17, though it was a great blind tee shot hole. 


Here are a few of my photos from the day.  It was a perfect day for golf. 

[JReese]

[Ken Fry]

Neil Johnston and I will be playing our match Saturday, July 1st around 11:00 AM Eastern time at The Warren Course at Notre Dame if anyone is interested in joining us.

Ken

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()