RECAP: GCA 25th Anniversary Mashie and Celebration Recap - Western Victory

[V_Halyard]

Well that went well.



 



Our temporary relocation of the Mashie to Southern Pines to coincide with the 25th Anniversary GolfClubAtlas GCA was architecturally cathartic. The weather was fantastic, and even gave us a proper taste of the elements, just enough on the last day. Joe M's Witness Protection status was problematic.







The East was hampered by the absence of their young gun Mr. Marvin and the West made hay and ran away to a day one lead at Southern Pines that prove insurmountable. We were blessed to have the actual Mashie was artfully hand polished and restored by the Mayor of Southern Pines, our own Jay “Micklestix” Mickle.

      



Day two at Mid-Pines wrapped up with return of “The Stick” it to rightful custodians in the West. Day three was a “friendly” wrap up at Pine Needles. Shout to the Ross Properties for their outstanding hospitality and course conditioning at Southern andMid Pines and Pine Needles. We had a ball. 

The East's Joe M's separation anxiety kicked in as he took this loss especially hard...
Nonetheless, the peaceful transfer of Mashie Power was overseen by the League Founder, Commissioner Morrissett

 



The true highlight of the festive gathering was the GCA anniversary which overlapped with the gathering of an event hosted by GCA’s Tom D, an actual golf course architect (a GCA). Our GCA 25th Anniversary party fell on the closing day of the event hosted by the GCA. It was a confluence of folks from all corners of the gca/GCA/GCA, all whom made way to honor the founding of GolfClubAtlas, GCA World HQ

The indomitable Fritz Morrissett captained and fed the gathering of folks from a divergent community of golf architecture and golf media. Folks from around the world pleasantly crashed the event. Represented was GOLF Magazine, Beyond The Contour, GolfWeek, Society of Golf Historians, Golf Digest, Top100Golf, St. Patricks, Pinehurst, GolfCourseArchitecure Magazine (GCA) and others I am sure to have missed. We had golf architects, shapers, engineers, course raters, course owners and aficionados, club chairs, captains, Muny GM’s  and folks from all manner of architected forward organizations from around the world. All gathered and crashed what was scheduled to be a small dinner in Southern Pines to celebrate the anniversary of an organization that anybody with a serious interest in golf architecture has at the least visited GolfClubAtlas.

It was a testament to GCA. Stories were told. Laughter was shared. Liquor was consumed. News of GCA future plans and updates were discussed and revealed. More liquor was consumed.(Renn Cup owes the Mashie Fund some chips... lol) We all had a chance to meet and chat with Andrew Harvie. Cheers to my Mashie Committee Co-conspirators, Jason Thurman, George Freeman and Criss Titschinger.

And of course a hearty special thank you to Ran and Fritz for allowing us to invade your home. It was even more outstanding than we could have envisioned.
Excellently well done Ran, Joe, Ben as well as John and Chris.

[Sean_A]

Thank you Mr Halyard!

The Mashie looks very fine!

If possible, can the folks in the indoor photo be identified?

Ciao

[Jason Thurman]

I don't know why we had to mention the West victory in the damn title but whatever.


I'm gonna take a stab at names in the photo. I'll need some help, but I can get us a good start:


Sitting, from left:

• Rich Choi
• I met him briefly but can't quite remember!
• Joe Andriole
• Evan Fleischer
• Todd
• Phil
• Matt
• Fritz!
• I failed to meet the two guys on the end

Standing, left to right:

• Ken Fry
• Andrew Harvie
• Joe Perches
• Dan Moore
• Hart Huffines
• Is that Paul Rudovsky? I didn't formally meet him...
• Josh Woodward
• Brad Hill
• Myself
• Peter Flory
• Ran
• Ryan Taylor
• Vaughn Halyard
• Criss Titschinger
• Jerry Kluger standing in front of Chris Sturges
• Morgan Clawson
• Joe Melchiors
• George Freeman
• John Mayhugh

Scoreboard be damned, this was probably the best Final Night of the Mashie of all-time. And that's saying something, because Final Night of the Mashie is consistently one of the best nights of the year for me. An awesome hang in the Midwest of the Southeast.

[Tim Martin]

Easy night for the Southern Pines PD with all the criminals located in one spot. Looks like it was a smashing success. Well played guys!