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rogue-cup-hq · 5 years

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2018 Recap

" And God said, "Let there be vodka!" And He saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let there be light!" And then He said, "Whoa - too much light." ~ Anonymous

With the two decade run at Deep Creek officially over, the Rogues found themselves a nomadic herd – a band of idiots without a home, inmates in need of an asylum, the old familiar structures and routines taken from them abruptly. No more snore isolation chamber; no more gas containment chamber - where would William and Goldy sleep? Questions abounded…. Not to mention, the daunting question of “what other drinking courses can we golf on.” The North Carolina contingent (AKA Goldy and William) stepped forward to take the laboring oar in hand and became de facto chairmen for the 2018 event. They secured an incredible deal for the group to convene in North Carolina at two beautiful venues in the Pinehurst area, which conveniently allowed PA an opportunity to double up a visit with family without compromising the annual liver workout.

The 2018 event drew a field of 10 players: PA, Goldy, William, Andrew, B. Smith, G. Berner, Ed Moore, Turns, and of course, Gary "Sandy Bags" Ozenbaugh. Notably, prodigal son David Sautter returned after missing last year due to his move to that little slice of paradise in Maryland called Port Deposit. Schnetzler was a no-show (again) but swore he would return in 2019. Jay“bird” Erbe let yet another year pass without a golf club or wine glass in hand. The usual perennial no-shows (Walter, Luigi) were once again, no-shows. Of those in attendance, several finally at least admitted they had been golfing regularly, but continued to swear they were awful and hadn't improved. The second part of the statement clearly proved true; a touch of honesty was finally beginning to infect the Rogue players..…

The event was “hosted” at the Talamore Villas, with the Rogues bunking in a few condos spread across the complex. The weather was unique for a Rogue event, as we dealt with ungodly high heat and humidity (we all would soon regret our decision to opt for the earlier week):

The courses themselves also represented a radical departure for the group. Rather than seeking out isolated, rural mountain courses with goat pasture fairways and banjos echoing faintly in the distance, we found ourselves playing on real golf courses – our first day of 2018 would be spent battling Talamore, a course the Rogues had no business playing. Day Two would find the Rogues meandering around the course originally known as Pinehurst Plantation, now known as the Mid South Club.

PA, anticipating the heightened challenges of these venues, undertook an ambitious eBay research project in the months leading up to Rogue, intent on replacing those irons he noticed were missing during the 2017 event. The multi-week search for matching Cobra irons came down to the wire, with the final replacement club arriving at Whispering Pines a day before the event. In an odd contrast of fate, PA came out of retirement and went back to work, while B. Smith showed far greater wisdom and left Lansdale to begin life at a lakefront paradise in Virginia (where he immediately set to work preparing “Smithlake” for a pre-Rogue party. And thus the table was set for Rogue 2018; we all pointed our compasses toward the sandhills of North Carolina. The standard decades old caveat/disclaimer regarding the marginal accuracy of my memory still stands. What follows is pieced together from a few notes jotted down on the plane ride home, amidst the cobweb corners of my pickled mind.

Wednesday - PA arrived on Wednesday to visit for a few days with his brother Mark & Mom, enjoying a quiet, relaxing evening. Other than reminiscing with a nostalgic look at old golf clubs gathering dust in the garage, golf was not on the agenda. Beer, however – was…….

Thursday A pre-Rogue gathering was held at Smithlake (I was informed that B. Smith declared that “swimsuits were not optional”). While I wasn’t present, it was described by attendees as a reasonably calm night. All Rogues (PA in Carolina, the rest of the gang at Smithlake) spent the evening watching the Eagles beat the Falcons in a nail-biter 18-12 on NFL opening night; the game came down to a last defensive play against Julio Jones in the end zone, naturally. The Eagles succeeded in swatting the ball away and earning a victory - Go, Birds.

Friday - the group arose in their respective locations and found their way to Buffalo Wild Wings in Southern Pines for some chow and beer before golf. The forecast was hot, humid with heat index in the mid 90's. Forget the forecast – it was already so. With bellies full of mediocre pub food, we made the short drive to the course.

Upon driving through the gates and parking our vehicles, reality slapped us hard in the face. There we stood – looking at a beautifully groomed course fronted by an elegant southern-style clubhouse. Yes, Talamore…. a course constructed in 1991 by famed course architect Rees Jones. With more than 150 feet of elevation change, wetlands, lakes and towering longleaf pines, Rees had carved out a course layout that the Rogues should not have been granted permission to play. Talamore is consistently ranked at the forefront for outstanding golf courses in the Village of Pinehurst area.

Beverages in hand (the usual iced tea and lemonade containers, and modest beer coolers), we were quickly humiliated by the vast, undulating putting green and our public displays of ground abuse on the driving range. An immediate controversy faced the Rogues on the first tee, as the debate raged over which tee box would govern the day. We had choices – gold, blue, white or green. Gold and blue were immediately vetoed by the majority…. Leaving the whites (or the greens, normally reserved for super seniors and women). After fierce debate, the group chose the green tees. Oh, the humanity and embarrassment….

With putters in hand for their first drive off the super-senior tee boxes, the round was underway and reality set in. The Talamore fairways and greens played like billiard tables – true rolls, and hard as a rock. A shot-by-shot analysis of the tattered scorecards revealed the mighty struggle -

B. Smith was his usual consistent self, with a pair of 43’s on both front and back nine – no real blow-up holes on the way to an 86 to establish himself yet again as the benchmark “zero” (go figure). PA started his round with par, double, triple on his way to a front nine 48. Righted the ship somewhat on the back with bogey golf to enter the clubhouse at 92, his first time ever scoring lower than the outdoor temperatures at a Rogue event and first time ever using a driver less than 5 times in 18 holes. Andrew made a statement: carded a 10 on the first hole, followed by a triple/double sequence after which he settled down for awhile, and after his highlight of the day (a birdie on #13) he had a rough sequence at the end, notching a three hole stretch of double/triple/double that left him with a tidy 100 on the day.

Goldy and Sautter shot matching 51’s on the front nine; the scorecard image was suspiciously faded on several of the holes – hard to determine where the trainwreck happened. Despite his usual elegant swing, Mr. Sautter’s wheels came off completely on #11, where he began a sequence of quintuple/quadruple/triple before finishing the round with a pair of triples on #17 and #18 to stumble home with 110 to trail the pack; however, this disaster of a round partnered him with Smith for the championship round, and would have implications on Day 2. Goldy stayed on the double-bogey train to card a 103. Ozy started out at a torrid pace, scoring 40 on the front nine. At that point, he had completely embraced the spirit of the event, evidenced by his 49 on the back, leaving him at 89. Turns had a tidy 45 on the front and seemed to be in a good rhythm; whatever he did at the turn didn’t help him, as he started off the back nine triple/double/quadruple on his way to a 53, putting him at 98 on the day.

Gary, Ed and William’s scorecard was very faded – Mr. Berner & Ed appeared to have an inauspicious start with each putting a triple on the card for the first hole. GB finished with the front nine with a 53, to Ed’s 48. William, quiet and steady as ever, played tidy bogey golf for a 45. On the back, GB played just as “well”, finishing with a pair of double-bogeys and tallying a 107 for the day; he had a gallery of angry, frustrated geese following him up the final hole. William maintained himself in the zone, finishing the back at 42 for a very nice 87 on the day.Others staggered to the finish in various states of physical disrepair.

Exhausted and teetering on heat stroke, the group sought refuge in the air-conditioned villas, languishing in various states of consciousness and disbelief that they had been so humbled by a paltry 5,500 yards of golf. The alcohol had made no difference. Everyone mustered their remaining energy and managed to organize/fund/retrieve a takeout order of sandwiches, pizzas, whatever and chose to stay in the safety of the villas – the evening was spent on internal alcohol rubs, card games, a moment of floor-rolling and cackling, a few chose chair naps. The Rogues were readying themselves for the day ahead.

Saturday – Sunny, hot & humid again in the 90’s, a possible scattered t-storm in the forecast never materialized, although it would have been welcome. The Rogues contemplated their choice to have the team play on Mid-South, an Arnold Palmer signature golf course described as offering a “challenging yet enjoyable” championship layout. From the back tees (an option the Rogues never considered), a player has to carry their drive 225 yards just to reach the fairway. Not to mention Mid South’s 11 acres of bunkers (the Rogues became painfully familiar with the entirety of that acreage).

Having adopted the previous year's team format again, the pairings based on top-bottom scoring of the previous day’s bludgeoning of Talamore were as follows – Smith/Sautter, Whitehead/Berner, Ozy/Goldy, Andrew/Ed and PA/Turns. Foursomes were purposefully done to split up the teams and balance the consumption levels:

Sautter, Ozy, Turns and Smith Goldy, Ed, Berner William, Andrew, PA

Notably, as we prepared for Mid-South, Smith’s and PA’s perennial beverages were on full display, but the usual wine bladder in Mr. Berner’s bag was absent (“red wine is a bad choice for a hot day”). Ozy promised to take up the slack and live the spirit of the event….. PA’s trusty lemonade container was present, as were the copious amounts of beer and what-not.

As we stared down the fairway of the first hole preparing for our tee shots, the heat index was 95. For the 4th round in a row (spanning two years now), a majority vote reinstated the “Great Rogue Compromise Rule of 2017”, again converting the event into a quasi chip-and-putt competition. Some of us looked around sheepishly and silently prayed that the 95 year old husband and wife teeing off on the teebox further back behind us didn’t ask for our IDs. The Rogues had an inauspicious start, with the first group all needing mulligans to get a single ball in play (it had nothing to do with distance). They don’t make fairways wide enough for the Rogues. In fact, it was so ugly that the starter, an elderly gent with a good sense of humor, instantly granted the remaining Rogues permission to hit into the leading group. Our kinda guy.

The Rogues spent their entire Saturday afternoon hacking, duffing, hooking, slicing, chunking, skulling, blading and wandering the Mid-South roughs and bunkers.

PA started triple/double/triple which accelerated his pace to finishing the “lemonade” far too early in the round; he needed every drop on his way to a debilitating 104. Andrew started off well, until the 4th hole – at which point he began a double/triple/triple sequence that loosened the lug nuts, and strung together double bogeys on the remaining holes to tie PA at 52 on the front. On the back, Andrew managed to gain a little traction and finished with 101. William had a rough start with a double/double combo, but then settled down - with a few pars, he managed to score 46 on the front. His story was similar on the back nine, with just a couple blow up holes to shoot 49, getting him into the clubhouse at 95.

Meanwhile, the group of Goldfarb, Moore and Berner were also incurring the wrath of the Mid-South course gods. Goldy had a tidy 10 on the 9th hole on his way to a 52; it got no better on the back nine as the final 4 holes saw Goldy run triple/quad/triple/quad, for a painful 110. After shooting a respectable 48 on the front, Ed decided to mimic Goldy, running quad/double/triple/triple to finish with 104. Gary Berner? Nothing if not consistent…. Started the round triple/quad and finished the round with a triple/quad, placing an enormous 116 on the card. His endurance and physical conditioning were admirable.

The final group (Sautter, Ozy, Turns and Smith) provided the gallery with the full spectrum of Rogue golfing skills. Smith put a tidy 45 on the front nine, with no real blow-up holes. Turns, on the other hand, consistently delivered doubles and triples to card a 58. Ozy worked a triple/triple/triple stretch to smear his opening nine with a 52, while Sautter seemed to be on track with the previous day, putting up a 54. On the back nine, a quad/double/quad finish produced another 58 for Turns, as he staggered off the 18th with a 116. Ozy’s wheels weren’t just off, he may have left them on the front nine. His triple/quad/triple/quad stretch on the back produced a 58 to match Turns, and a rather rare triple digit 110 score. On the positive side, Oz had unquestionably lived up to the spirit of the event. Smith fired another tidy 45 on the back to produce a 90. But the story of the 2018 Rogue golf was clearly David Sautter’s back nine, where he fired a scorching (for him) 43, bringing him in at 97 to clinch the 2019 Rogue Cup team win for himself and Smith….

Some vague personal recollections/observations from Saturday’s Cup round at Mid-South: while I managed to strike some thunderous drives, once off the tee I floundered helplessly in a state of confused ineptitude. No mid-iron skills, no short iron skills, and I hit wedge shots like I was swinging a tree branch. I recall holing an impressively long curling putt on 18… it mattered not. I also recall broad proclamations of despair over the choice of foursome going off first and the subsequent snail-like pace of play. Universally, Ozy is blamed.

Following the round, the group made its way back to the condos to tally up the cards and determine who “won”. We were also in desperate need for a cooling-down period (also known as a “nap”). Sautter and Smith proudly held the Cup high - Smith had gotten so used to wearing the Jacket that a simple nod that he’d won it was sufficient; no need to try and put it on. In a rare combo, Sautter had also secured the Sox as top sandbagger, in addition to having his name engraved on the Cup. This new team format may find the Sox/Cup combo a more frequent occurrence. The Shirt (for highest overall score) was naturally once again in the hands of Gary Berner. For the record:

We found ourselves at a little local watering hole called Maxie’s, after which Andrew gave us an inadvertent driving tour of the area. I recall copious amounts of Crown Royal & ginger the rest of the evening, much of it inspired by Turns.

Sunday was a brief affair – the group fumigated the villas, packed and bid farewell – no decisions made as to a 2019 venue (although we all agreed that NC temperatures required a later date). And thus the 2018 Rogue Cup drew to a close for another year. Farewell, Talamore and Mid-South...thanks for the drubbing! Cheers to all….what will 2019 bring?

2018 Photo gallery here - https://photos.app.goo.gl/UsKXmXVcAk5XF9vE6

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