Tournament Talk

Joel and I holding the winners trophy

The tournament was a blast and I think everyone had a great time.  The Cliffs is a beautiful golf course and the lodging and the food was fabulous.  The course has beautiful bent grass greens and nice sand trap.  The course can be very penalizing if you are not firmly in the fairway.  Even then there are grass berms that will eat your golf ball as well as the grass on the fringes of the fairways.  Suffice to say there were quite a few golf balls lost over the three day event. The heat really got to on Friday afternoon.  I guess I wasn't as hydrated as I thought.  It was around 104 degrees, but the rest of the group didn't crater like I did.  I guess I need to get in better shape.
We used a modified Stableford format.  Bob, Russell Ed and Higgy played 3 rounds each and Joel and I played 2.  The guys thay played three rounds got to throw out their worst round.  After the morning round on Friday, it was beginning to look like Ed would walk away with it, but as happens so often, over the course of the event, the unexpected takes place.  On Saturday morning, I caught fire along with Joel.  I finished the Saturday round strong and was putting really well.  Joel of course was his usual machine like putter and Joel and I wound up as co-champions of the 2011 4 R's tournament at The Cliffs, we need to come up with another name since there original 4 R's don't even play in the event any more.  In reality, I believe it was a chance event that really led to Joel and I winning.  At the evening meal, Russell did a coin flip to determine who rode with who for the final round.  Higgy won the coin flip and it resulted in Russell riding with Ed.  Russell riding with the leader is the Kiss of death for the leader.  Mr mind games has a way of bringing an opponent game to a grinding halt.  With all of Russell's skill in gamesmanship, the one thing he hasn't yet been able to figure out is how to win the trophy. Joel and I got to play in the first group and were far enough ahead of Russell to be out of his sphere of influence.

A big thanks to Higgy.  He is a property owner there and was able to get us discounts on almost everything.  Way to go Higgy.  We talked about having another outing at the Cliffs in October when it's a bit cooler.

The view out of Joel and my room

Here are some pictures