pro golf   

Updated Nov. 23, 2013

2013 WBC Report   

  2014 Status: pending 2014 GM commitment

Bill Morse, VA

2013 Champion

   

Event History
1994    Dave Walrath      29
1995    Bruce Reiff      45
1996    Tom Pavy      43
1997    Dave Metzger      65
1998    Kevin Wojtaszczyk      61
1999    John Coussis     71
2000    Adam Gugliemini     74
2001    Dennis Nicholson     76
2002    Terry Coleman     86
2003    Ken Gutermuth     80
2004    Devin Flawd     75
2005    Nathaniel Hoam     54
2006    Bruce Reiff     67
2007    Keith Hunsinger     62
2008    Brian Farrelly     67
2009    Eric Brosius     58
2010    Brooks Beyma     63
2011    Daniel Pappas     63
2012    John Coussis     71
2013    Bill Morse     73

PBeM Event History
2010    Lisa Gutermuth     34
2011    Dennis Nicholson     41
2012   Mark Yoshikawa      44
2013    Dennis Nicholson     48

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  John Coussis       IL    12     92
  2.  Ken Gutermuth      TX    11     74
  3.  Dennis Nicholson   NY    13     72
  4.  Mark Yoshikawa     CA    13     69
  5.  Devin Flawd        PA    04     34
  6.  Bill Morse         VA    13     32
  7.  Bruce Reiff        OH    11     32
  8.  Keith Hunsinger    OH    08     26
  9.  Chris Kizer        CA    13     24
 10.  Debbie Gutermuth   NC    13     22
 11.  Lisa Gutermuth     NC    10     22
 12.  Daniel Pappas      MD    11     20
 13.  Brooks Beyma       MD    10     20
 14.  Eric Brosius       MA    09     20
 15.  Brian Farrelly     IL    08     20
 16.  Nate Hoam          OH    05     20
 17.  Terry Coleman      bc    02     20
 18.  Adam Gugliemini    PA    00     20
 19.  Bob Tassinari      NY    12     18
 20.  Jason Levine       NY    12     18
 21.  Chris Kamm         NY    04     18
 22.  Paul Risner        FL    11     16
 23.  Mike Pacheco       CA    13     14
 24.  Robert Drozd       IL    10     14
 25.  Pete Stein         OH    13     12
 26.  Danny Lewis        DE    11     12
 27.  Jim Bell           MD    10     12
 28.  Rod Weaver         PA    08     12
 29.  Erica Kirchner     KY    07     12
 30.  John Shaheen       MA    06     12
 31.  Dan Dolan Jr       NJ    05     12
 32.  David Metzger      NY    03     12
 33.  Jeff Mullet        OH    12     10
 34.  Josh Githens       SC    10     10
 35.  Seth Kirchner      KY    03     10
 36.  Jason Porta        PA    12      9
 37.  Bruce Maxwell      VA    04      9
 38.  Sean McCulloch     OH    13      8
 39.  Mark Mtchell       VA    12      8
 40.  Bruce Young        SC    11      8
 41.  Mark Neale         RI    09      8
 42.  Beth Zhao          DC    07      8
 43.  Davyd Field        CA    06      8
 44.  George Sauer       OH    03      8
 45.  Robert Eastman     NV    02      8
 46.  H Richardson III   VA    01      8
 47.  Bill Beckman       SC    00      8
 48.  Harry Flawd        PA    99      8
 49.  Ted Simmons        IL    13      6
 50.  Nicole Reiff       OH    10      6
 51.  Bernard Beckerman  NY    09      6
 52.  Richard Meyer      MA    09      6
 53.  Carrie Lewis       DE    07      6
 54.  Charles Squibb     PA    05      6
 55.  Lee Presser        NY    03      6
 56.  Grant LaDue        NY    13      4
 57.  Paul Bean          MA    11      4
 58.  Robert Kircher     RI    11      4
 59.  David Stiffler     VA    10      4
 60.  Charles Drozd      IL    08      4
 61.  Kevin Brown        GA    06      4
 62.  Hilary Haagen      VA    13      3
 63.  Scott Buckwalter   MD    12      3
 64.  Ann Cornett        FL    04      3
 65.  Bruce Monnin       OH    12      2
 66.  Mike Coomes        OH    10      2
 67.  Nick Kramer        PA    08      2
 68.  Arthur Davis       MI    02      2
 69.  Vincent Collura    PA    99      2

2013 Laurelists                                                Repeating Laurelists:

Chris Kizer, CA
2nd

Peter Stein, OH
3rd

Mark Yoshikawa, CA
4th

Ted Simmons, IL
5th

Hilary Haagen, VA
6th

Past Winners

Dave Walrath, MA
1994

Bruce Reiff, OH
1995, 2006

Tom Pavy, OH
1996

Dave Metzger, VA
1997

Kevin Wojtaszczyk, NY
1998

John Coussis. IL
1999, 2012

Adam Gugliemini, PA
2000

Dennis Nicholson, NY
2001

Terry Coleman, BC
2002

Ken Gutermuth, TX
2003

Devin Flawd, PA
2004

Nate Hoam, OH
2005

Keith Hunsinger, OH
2007

Brian Farrelly, IL
2008

Eric Brosius, CT
2009

Brooks Beyma, MD
2010

Daniel Pappas, MD
2011

Bill Morse, VA
2013
   

Elizabeth Ploran and Brett Mingo have fallen in with a bad crowd - don't let the pink shirts fool ya.

Dan Dolan Jr, Shannon Keating, Jim & Alex Bell ... don't burn too many brain cells, guys. It's only Thursday. Pace yourself.

The secret to Pro Golf's success ... the 19th hole.

A bad police lineup or Pro Golf finalists ... take your pick.

Emotional Appeal Fails ...

Pro Golf grew by two more duffers this year, perhaps thanks to the teaching session run by assistant GM Rob Drozd. I bet that was a real mind bender! The increase to 73 participants starting off from the Hopewell room was the greatest number of entrants since 2004. This year we switched to the Pebble Beach course in hopes of more balls going out of bounds or finding the water, but scores were only down slightly from previous years.

The event was preceded by 2012 email tournament champion, Mark Yoshikawa, awarding a BPA Pro Golf green jacket to last year's WBC winner, John Coussis. Mark inexplicably chose to keep the larger green jacket for himself, leaving John with a jacket approximately five sizes too small for himself.

For the fourth year in a row, no playoff was needed to select our four lucky - I mean skilled - golfers in the Skins game. Six under par was the magic score to reach the Skins game, and four players (Chris Kizer, Mark Yoshikawa, Peter Stein and Bill Morse) posted that result. In a world turned upside down, Mark Yoshikawa was the only returning laurelist and in the unaccustomed role of favorite going into the Skins game. Five players just missed out with a score of five under par. The rest of the field came in with scores ranging from four under to four over par.

The Skins game was notable for several occurrences. It began when Peter went to start his first ever hole of the Skins game after over two decades of trying to reach the Promised Land. When he first touched the big green foam dice used in the Final, he began blubbering and was overcome with emotion and needed to be consoled by Mark, who went through the same experience the year before. After this shameless appeal to fate for divine intervention, the round began.

As is our tradition, the finalists were not allowed to read their own golfer cards, but instead had to delegate that duty to a caddie. While Peter and Bill had fairly standard caddies, Mark's caddie set the new standard by which all future caddies will be measured. Ken Gutermuth performed the duties, and he acted like the staff at a Hilton when they see Mark's quadruple platinum special guest card. "Let me get the dice for you, Mr. Yoshikawa," "You need a birdie for the Skin, Mr. Yoshikawa," and "You need to roll a 46 or better, Mr. Yoshikawa," were often heard during the Final. By contrast, Chris' caddie, Lisa Gutermuth, often needed to be prompted to perform the simplest of tasks for her charge.

After Peter recovered from his emotional start, he birdied the first hole (with golfer Chris DiMarco) to claim the initial skin. The second hole was halved when both Peter and Mark birdied, then Bill (with golfer Robert Allenby) birdied the third hole to claim two skins of his own.

The fourth hole was halved, then Chris (with Steve Flesch) strung together birdies on the fifth and sixth holes to earn three skins for himself. Mark (with Carl Pettersson) was the last to get on the scoreboard, taking the skin on the seventh hole. After Bill picked up his third skin with a birdie on the eighth, he and Chris were tied for the lead with three skins each while Peter and Mark each had one. With four holes to go, it was still anyone's game.

The next three holes were all halved, as no one could post a birdie. In fact, Bill bogeyed all three holes and had to hope the others halved the holes to prevent them from earning the skins. That meant that the winner of the last hole would win four skins and thus the tournament. Bill started the par 3 12th hole with a birdie. The other three desperately tried to match him, but all failed, leaving Bill Morse as our 2013 champion.

Chris claimed second place with his three skins, and a tie-breaking die roll gave third place to Peter while Mark had to settle for fourth. Pete went off mumbling and looking for puppies to kick.

Be sure to join the fun again in 2014, and maybe even get in a little practice in the 2014 Fifth Annual PBeM tournament which should start sometime this spring (right before the Masters). Bruce Reiff contibuted to this article.

 So, that's how Yoshi made the cut ...

 Yoshi and the Meanie tussle over who gets the lucky green dice ...

 Having successfully wrestled away the green dice from the little guy, the Meanie proceeds to slice off the fairway. Who would be dumb enough to stay up to watch this drivel, anyway?

 ... oh


 PBeM Tournament:

A record field of 48 players took to the links 99 times to contest the 4th Annual BPA Pro Golf PBeM tournament. All players first competed on the Muirfield Village course. A third of the field was culled with the rest moving on to contest the Lancaster Host course. The top third of the original field then advanced to challenge the Augusta National course. The best cumulative score of the three rounds won the title.

It was far and away our most closely contested tournament in the four years of the event, as seven players ended the final round within one stroke of the lead. Defending champion Mark Yoshikawa jumped out to the first round lead with a 5 under par effort on the Muirfield Village course. However, unlike last year where he took a four-stroke lead after the first course, he was joined at -5 by Debbie Gutermuth, Sean McCulloch and Alexandra Monnin.

Sean and Grant LaDue posted the best scores in the second round with 6 under on the Lancaster Host course. This gave Sean the overall lead at 11 under, one stroke ahead of Mark. Alan Evenson lingered just two strokes back, Grant and Debbie were three behind while 2011 champion Dennis Nicholson lurked four strokes off the pace.

The 18 survivors moved on to the third course, Augusta National, which exacted a heavy price from the pretenders. Leader McCulloch posted a disappointing score of 3 over par to fall to -8 overall. He was soon passed by Nicholson, who used a 2 under par round to finish -9 for the tournament. Yoshikawa, who started his final round 4 over par, birdied the last three holes to tie for the lead and force a playoff for the title.

Sean McCulloch was not the only player to finish one stroke off the lead. He was joined by Debbie Gutermuth (who just missed her birdie putt on the final hole), Mike Pacheco, Grant LaDue and Bill Morse (who posted the best Augusta score of 4 under par).

For the tie-breaker, Dennis and Mark faced off for three holes at Arrowhead Park (the GM's home course). Things started poorly for the defending champ, as Mark's golfer, Bruce Lietzke, bogeyed the first hole while Dennis' golfer, Curtis Strange, shot par. Mark rallied for a birdie on the second hole, but Dennis matched it to retain a one-stroke lead. Mark showed the heart of a champion by scoring another birdie on the third hole. But Dennis was not to be denied, as he rolled a glorious 66 to drain his tournament winning birdie putt.

Meanwhile, Debbie Gutermuth emerged from six holes of tie-breaker action to claim third place over Mike Pacheco, Grant LaDue, Sean McCulloch and Bill Morse - who finished 7th - just out of the laurels.

The tournament will be restarted in March 2014. Come join us next year as we use the time of the Masters and the U.S. Open to determine another PBeM champion of the BPA Pro Golf world.

 GM      Bruce Monnin [10th Year]  177 South Lincoln St, Minster, OH 45865-1240 
    bdmonnin@nktelco.net   937-441-2480

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