Tighes and Sinigaglio's playing virtual golf ... time to test Jersey's water.	At least they don't need a cart, there are no green fees, and the holes are air conditioned.
Haven't I seen him hawking a carnival ring toss game?	Ah ... the 19th hole ... now I understand.

Pro Golf is a unique event in the sense that despite drawing a consistent number of entrants every year, each year approximately half of these entrants did not play in the tournament the year before. Such was the case again this year, with only about half of the entrants returning from 2009. This also applied to our four finalists, only two of whom played last year (including the last place finisher from 2009). A pessimist might say that "once was enough" while an optimist would point to the extremely easy learning curve and applaud how accessible the event is to new players.

Regardless of your outlook, 63 participants teed off from the Hopewell room this year including four members of the BPA Board of Directors who kept up their annual tradition of underperformance, with only one of the quartet finishing under par. The exception (as usual) was Ken Gutermuth who finished 7th at 4 under par.

In what was a first time occurrence, no playoff was needed to select our four advancing golfers for the Skins game. Four players stood out from the field after the 75 minute first round was completed on the 18 holes of the 2002 version of the Augusta course. Jim Bell led the field at 8 under par, while Brooks Beyma, Sean McCulloch and Debbie Gutermuth (last year's lantern rouge) were right behind at 7 under par.

We then spared no expense to transport these top four players to the Lancaster Host Golf Club for the 12 hole Skins game. Debbie Gutermuth (playing Gene Sarazen) jumped out to an early lead when she birdied the first hole. The next three holes were halved, making the crucial par 5 5th hole worth four Skins. Brooks Beyma (Justin Leonard) was the only player to birdie the hole, grabbing a huge early lead.

After the sixth hole was halved, Debbie earned two more Skins with the only birdie on the par 4 7th hole. The 8th hole was then halved, so when Jim Bell (Jim Furyk) won the par 4 9th hole with a birdie, the Skins were 4 for Brooks, 3 for Debbie, 2 for Jim and 0 for Sean McCulloch. This was bad news for Sean (Scott Verplank), who could no longer win and was relegated to a spoiler role.

Brooks extended his lead with a birdie on the par 4 10th hole and almost stole the clinching Skin on the par 3 11th hole when Jim and Debbie both failed to obtain par. But Spoiler Sean came through with the par to halve the hole and keep the outcome in doubt going into the twelfth and final hole.

Brooks started out by bogeying the par 3 12th. But the championship plaque became his when Jim won the hole and the two Skins with a birdie. Brooks' five Skins were just enough to edge out Jim's four Skins for the title. Debbie finished third with her three Skins and Sean slunk home to Ohio with no Skins for the fourth place finish. Though to be fair to Sean, he was handicapped as PBeM tournament champ Lisa Gutermuth provided him with one of the worst caddying jobs seen in the history of the Pro Golf Skins game.

Be sure to join the fun again in 2011, and maybe even get in a little practice in the 2011 PBeM tournament which should start sometime this spring (right before the Masters).

Pro Golf Results For AREA

Qualifying Round
1st - Jim Bell
2nd - Brooks Beyma
3rd - Sean McCulloch
4th - Debbie Gutermuth
5th - Mark Yoshikawa
6th - Mike Coomes
7th - Ken Gutermuth
- Daniel Pappas
9th - Dennis Nicholson
- Andrew Sinigaglio
- Frank Sinigaglio
- John Coussis
- Brendan Coomes
- Richard Meyer
15th - Tom Browne
- James Kramer
- Jeremy Billones
- Peter Stein
19th - Danny Lewis
- John Tighe, Sr.
- Phillip White
- Rob Drozd
- Charles Drozd
- Keith Hunsinger
- Jeff Finkeldey
26th - Louise Strickland
- Gino Sinigaglio
- Bob Menzel
29th - David Stiffler
- Lisa Gutermuth
- Jeff Mullet
- Jennifer Drozd
- Christina Hancock
- Josh Detamore
- Eric Buetikofer
- Jesse Sinigaglio
- Richard Irving
38th - Ed Roberts
- John Riendeau
- Luke Koleszar
- Nicole Reiff
- Mark Neale
- Paul Risner
- Eric Brosius
45th - Bruce Monnin
- Claire Brosius
47th - Max Jamelli
- John Tighe, Jr.
49th - Mark Mitchell
- Robert Rund
51st - Alex Bell
52nd - Jason Porta
53rd - Andy Lewis
- Carrie Lewis
- Wes Lewis
- Bruce Reiff
- Scott Nerney
- John Shaheen
- Aaron Fuegi
- Paul Bean
- Chad Gormly
- Bob Wicks
- Rob Kircher

Final
1st - Brooks Beyma
2nd - Jim Bell
3rd - Debbie Gutermuth
4th - Sean McCulloch

The "lucky" foursome with their tickets to the Skins game. The playoffs and your choice of big, fuzzy dice await as the "silly" olympics hits its stride at midnight.	GM Bruce Monnin honors PBeM champion Lisa Gutermuth for the mind boggling feat of winning Pro Golf by email. Duke tuition costs how much? Obviously money well spent.

 PBeM Tournament

A field of 34 players with too much time on their hands signed up to contest the first annual (sigh) BPA Pro Golf PBeM tournament. All players first competed on the Augusta National course. The top half of the field survived the cut and moved on to contest the always difficult Lancaster Host course, home of WBC. The best cumulative score of the two rounds won the title.

Champion Lisa Gutermuth used golfer Jerry Pate to be one of three golfers to finish the first round at six strokes under par. Dennis Nicholson (also with Jerry Pate) and Andrew Daw (Johnny Miller) were the other two leaders after the opening round.

Dave Stiffler set the best score on the Lancaster Host course, his six under par 65 vaulting him from 17th place after the first round into a 5th place finish. Josh Githens (using golfer Tom Kite) was just one stroke behind, his five under par 66 moving him into a second place tie with Nicholson. The tiebreaker went in favor of Dennis when he won a six hole playoff on the Muirfield Village course by a whopping four strokes.

Plaque winner Gutermuth was also only one stroke off the best mark for the second round. The combination of her consistently good (?) play on both courses allowed her to post a final score of 11 under par, two strokes better than the rest of the field. She had an eagle in each round, on the 15th hole at Augusta and on the 18th hole at the Lancaster Host to seal the win (especially combined with Nicholson's missed three-foot putt for a bogey on the 18th).

Lisa also demonstrated an advantage of PBeM play as she participated in a lot of "night golf" under the lights. She finished the first game between 12:40 and 1:55am, prompting the GM to remark to this college student, ""Don't you have worse things to be doing after midnight on a Friday?"

The tournament will be restarted in March 2011. Come join us next year as we use the time between the Masters and the U.S. Open to determine another PBeM champion of the BPA Pro Golf world.

1st: Lisa Gutermuth
2nd: Dennis Nicholson
3rd: Josh Githens
4th: Nicole Reiff
5th: Dave Stiffler
6th: Rob Drozd