SBRWGA pink team in costume
Marci Whitehead and Diane Taylor ready for some golf
Debbie Ferguson
Welcome back, golf fans! September may have been a slow golf month, however, your SaddleBrooke Women’s Golf Association (SBRWGA) made up for it in October. The month started with the annual meeting. Several bylaws were passed. Please see the SBRWGA website for the details. This important information is much too boring to print in the Roundup.
Your club championship was played on two back-to-back days, Oct. 9 and 10. The tournament provided fierce competition. The weather on day one was calm and warm. On day two, Mother Nature decided to add to the excitement with pleasantly cooler temperatures accompanied by winds with frequent high gusts. I hope your playing partners were watching those drives. This reporter’s foursome definitely had trouble locating several drives during the round.
The holes were played, the scores were tabulated, and the pairings matched for day two. The players set off on day two optimistic and ready to bring home the win. All the players knew this could be their year. As the ladies finished play on round two and rolled into the Sol Ballroom for a much-needed beverage, not many groups this reporter interviewed had reason to enjoy birdie juice on the course. The golf stories began. Excitement was in the air; the large scoreboard was completed in secrecy.
Please congratulate your Club Champion Jean Cheszek, with a final gross round of -1, and your Senior Club Champion Karen Jordan. Golf fans, you heard correctly, in a repeat of the 2022 results, your club champions proved their skills with back-to-back victories. Congratulations to all the flight winners and ladies who played and made the event the largest field in the SBRWGA history for the club championship.
October 16 dawned early for 31 ladies who attended a rules clinic at 7:30 a.m. This clinic was specific to the glorious and disastrous hole that is hole number 11. The local rules are available and many come into play on this hole. This reporter suggests printing these rules from the website and keeping them in your bag. Remember, the rules can sometimes aid you and other times hurt you. The information was, at times, helpful with equal doses of baffling logic. Ladies, keep your ball in the fairway and none of the hours worth of rules will come into play.
Next up and continuing our heated, but friendly competition, was the always fun and popular Updegraff Cup. This two-day competition follows the LPGA Solheim Cup format with SBRWGA twists. The event started with the reveal party on Friday, Oct. 27. The captains for the Blue Witches, Jean Cheszek and Barb Simms, battled it out with the Pink Team Ghost Captains, Diana Walton and Karen Jordan, to recruit the players best suited for their team strategy. The players arrived to discover what team they were on and to begin strategy and pairing discussions for Monday. The weather proved to be a challenge on the first day of competition as the players battled it out in their matches. The blue team was able to finish strong with a lead of 9.5 to 6.5, helped in part by five chip-ins for the blue team. With the expectation of increasingly difficult weather, the captains made the decision to have the full field play from the gold/forward tees on the second day of competition. With this new development, the pink team knew the tournament was far from over.
With renewed energy and costumes, both teams were ready for play. With a widely inaccurate forecast the layers and hats were discarded and the ladies were able to concentrate on their golf shots. Thanks to our event sponsors for this fun event: Golf Cars of Arizona, Team Platinum, and Youthful Glow. As the round progressed, some ladies were able to grasp victory for themselves with closest-to-the-pin wins. Join me in congratulating our Closest to the Pin winners Lenore Kolhoff, Debbie Belt, Jeanne Jensen, Ingi McManus, Kay Johnson, Karen Jordan, Debbie Shelton, and Pilar Borm. The holes were hard fought and no one knew which way the matches would go. Would the pink team make up the deficit, or would the blue team’s lead from day one keep them in the lead? The tension was palpable and broken only when the results were revealed. Golf fans, a 16-16 tie! This reporter is here to congratulate the winning teams, all the ladies who battled it out on the course, and to say “Golf is a funny game.” No one would have predicted a tie. Your captains hope you all had fun. Bragging rights are on hold until next year.
Ho Ho Ho, it’s that time of year again. Please consider donating to the golf grounds crew’s annual gift. You can drop off your donation in the Pro Shop with checks made payable to the SBRMGA.