The 16th K.E.C.O. - S.F.I. tournament started and ended with a great show. First, on Friday night, the day before the "main event", Blake Brewer, Tournament Director, invited 13 championship caliber players for a friendly and competitive "horse race" that turned out pretty exciting, particularly when two of our members and local favorites, smiley Dustin Gunkel and soft spoken Cory Smith were in the last four golfers competing for the first three places. Up to that moment, Dustin was the hottest player in the field, with four birdies in the first 5 holes.
It was not to be for Dustin, who lost the chipoff against Cory and eventual winner, Raleigh Hughes on #16. Cory was eliminated on #17 and placed third (the horse race was on the back nine), when his downwind tee shot hit on the back of the green and rolled another 20 feet and could not get it up and in to a front hole location.
On the last hole, the short par 5 #18, Raleigh was only a few feet from a disastrous out of bounds, and not only managed an approach to 45 feet, but ended the race with a perfect putt to the center of the cup for eagle to defeat Lane Branum with about 40-50 people watching. Off to a great steak dinner for all tournament participants, a good rest and expectations for Saturday's round. By the way, the dinner yielded over $3,500 for a local charity!
The tournament hosted 22 teams in the Championship flight and 50 teams for the "A", "B" and "C" flights, and all flights were very competitive, and while the last score was posted at about 7:30 p.m., the tournament was not over! While the winner in the Championship Flight had been determined by the outstanding score of 51 by Nic Bailey, Doug Dixon, Jay Shutler & Brad Durr, three other teams had tied for second place only one shot back, which meant a playoff for 2nd, 3rd and 4th!
Among these three teams was the only local team out of three that made it to the top 5, the team of our former club professional Cory Smith, his brother Russ Smith and close friends Sean Cowan and Joel Burlson. This meant that the gallery of about 80 would not only be big, but it would have a team to really cheer for, and off they went to #10.
The format called for a scramble and sudden death playoff with the rotation of #10, #11 and #18; also, for each hole that the playoff continues, teams drop a player from their lineup until only one player represents a team. All teams tied #10, Elk City dropped Sean Cowan. The team of Keith Pasby, Stetson McMillior, Kyle Robin & Conner Smith eagled #11 and won 2nd place.
Elk City, not surprisingly for me, but to the disappointment of many who would like to have seen the two brothers come up #18, dropped Russ (I feel that it was a gentlemanly thing to do, since Joel came from out of town to join their friends). Cory made a great 8 footer to tie and off they went to #10, where Cory would be the last player. The sun had already given us its last light of the day 15 minutes before, so, with members' carts lights shinning on the surface of the 10th green, Cory again, made a 10 footer that ended the playoff when Ben Blundell could not convert a five footer. It was 9:20 p.m. and the group had not lost anyone in the gallery!
The rest of the results are as follows (all ties in "A", "B" and "C" flights were determined by a scorecard playoff starting at a hole drawn by a player in front of all concerned):
"A": 1st (54) Lucky Star Casino, 2nd (56) EFS #3, 3rd (57) First Choice Homes, T4th (57) L&R Tire and (57) Puckett Foods.
"B": 1st (60) Steve Welch, 2nd (60) EFS #2, 3rd (60) Bigby Energy, T 4th (60) Ronnie Smith, MLB Consulting and Barber Dyson Ford.
"C": 1st (66) Wellmark, 2nd (66) S&K-S&W, 3rd (66) BVG Construction, 4th (66) Post Construction.
Now, the only two things to think about are.... The OILMAN'S coming up next week and closing the month with a junior tournament on the 24th and the Club Championship on the 27th and 28th!!
Note: Rowdy Nagle, who has been our "right hand" in the shop for the last 16 months or so, will be leaving us at the end of this month in order to pursue college education in Oklahoma City. We are happy for him.... but we will miss him!!
More photos in this post to follow. You can see our 2013 KECO-SFI album in facebook
