Most golf courses host a variety of golf events sponsored or hosted by different companies. Some companies have an employee tournaments or outing for their employees... a "day off" so to speak off. Other companies, lend their name and their resources to have a tournament for a specific worthy charity of their choice, while others, put up really nice tournaments for the public.I only know of one event anywhere, hosted by a business, specifically to show appreciation for their customers: The Great Plains National Bank Customer Appreciation Day.
The event is a hybrid between a tournament and an outing. A "tournament" because all teams are given a scorecard in order to record a score, and the winners -that is first place only-, are given a small prize; an outing because the rules are very lose, because each hole has an individual prize for different types of shots and because the last place wins as much as the first place, and no team in between gets a prize based on their score.In fact, one of the members of such team, came to the pro-shop the next day, sort of down that his team had not done better than a 72, in fact, placing them in 34th place out of 34 teams, something that he didn't know because he and his dad had left early.
He was sort of apologetic to me that his team had not done better, and him in particular, because he would have liked to play at least a little better for his dad and the other two members of his team, a husband-wife couple I suppose he had met for the first time ever, and with whom they had had a great day at the golf course otherwise.... when I told him that his team had been last, he seemed even more down, however, when I told him that all of them had earned the same prize as first place, he was first incredulous, and then, even though the prize is not life changing, he became the happiest man I ever saw, like a guy who puts in a quarter in a slot machine and gets a $20 jack pot.... "what are the odds?" I wish that the bank employees who put this together had seen this scene, it was fun.
The outing hosted over 140 players, many of them, when invited, made their own teams in advance. Some of them, as the last place team, were made by the bank employees in charge of the entries. Some were family members, some were friends and some were complete strangers until they met on the course. The tournament offered "mulligans" and a putting contest for $5 a piece, with all of the proceeds going to a local charity. |
| "Please don't fall down Don!" |
Two teams tied for first with a score of 58: Brad & Dayva Spitzer and David & Rachel Poole who tied with the fivesome of Kelley Bowen, Josh Milner, Mickey Clark, Mike Clark & Jay Cross.
If you don;t know of these players, you'd probably say, "well, one is a team of 4 and one is a team of 5, maybe the 58 of the Spitzers and Pooles is 'better deserving' of first place than the team who had 5 players". Maybe... but if you know these players, maybe the team of 4 had an advantage because the two ladies hit from the from the front tees and they both have a nice game. The fact is that you can't say that one team had an advantage over the other, and I guarantee to you that both teams left a stroke or two on the course. All nine are pretty good players. So, that is why the tournament had a written tie breaker procedure: a scorecard playoff starting at a hole determined by a drawing. In this case, Rachel Poole, drew hole #12 out of the stack, which gave the opposing team of five the win. It turns out that the Poole's and Spitzer's had missed a 7 foot putt on that hole for a birdie that would have made this playoff unnecessary. In the end, they split the prize.And now, the names of the people everyone was waiting for, the 34th place (which by the way, I doubt if they are paired again together next year!): Shannon McAbbe, Chase McAbee, Harold Blevins and Gaylene Blevins! Congratulations and thank you for your participation... and see you next year!