August 17th, 2008 - Forest Hills

We came, we saw and there weren’t a whole lot of conquests! There were, as you will read later a couple of young bucks who did a little TOO well, if you get my drift, and we will deal with them accordingly – but more on that in a minute. The sun shone brightly at Forest Hills and a nice breeze made for a perfect day for golf – if only we could’ve taken advantage of it! Forest Hills was feeling the effects of our latest dry spell, so the extra roll we were getting on our drives was offset by hard, fast greens that made low scores hard to come by (of course, our GAMES also made low scoring difficult).

Walking off with first-place honors was Matt “Needs a Nickname” Willbond, who rode a fine front nine to a 42+48=90 and a Net Score of 68. He will, naturally, feel a little pain in the handicap area next time around, but a tip of the Smitty Tour Tam o’ Shanter goes to the young man. Second place went to current Tour leader Mark “The Kid” Loan, who despite all of his bitching fashioned a 44+48=92, Net 70, and 18 points. Looks like a little handicap tweaking is in order there as well. Third-place points, and Low Gross honors, go to Jeff “The Headhunter” Liedel, who overcame his wildness off the tee and fired a nice 41+42=83, Net 71. Second place in the Low Gross category went to Andy “The Drewmeister” Liedel, with a 41+47=88. He was not happy to finish behind his elder sibling, either!

Although not nearly as punitive as The Back at Brunswick Hills, our intrepid lot really had its problems with Forest Hills’ back nine. When it was all said and done, only Gordie “Achilles” Willbond managed to improve his front nine score on the backside. (That moniker, by the way, has nothing to do with the epic Greek warrior but rather an unfortunate encounter with a horse on the Metroparks bridle path). The rest of us really gagged after the turn, with a couple of those Beeg-a-Boys from Elyria scoring 10 and 11 points higher!

In the race for the 2008 Cheeseboard, The Kid really solidified his lead over the 07 champ, Andy Liedel, going 15 points up with three events to go. We all know that crowning a winner before the November event is sheer folly, and the drop-one scoring factor always makes things interesting and, in this case, puts Matt Willbond right in the thick of things. Looks like another tight race heading into the Fall events.

Next up for your favorite hackers is Pleasant Valley in Medina, perhaps the sternest test ever for a stroke-play event. Longer, hillier and woodsier than our normal track, we should see some really interesting scores on this puppy. Stay tuned.

Forest Hills Results