Hassett CASHES IN and wins at Cluster Spires!

John Hassett played one of his best round of the year with the Knuckleheads shooting 42 front and 48 in the back (despite committing a massive two 9’s) to bring home the low net bacon with a net 74. But then to be clear, so did Michael Jan, Rick Princisky, and Brian Duffy. All low net 74 and tied to unfortunately split the 1st place prize of $35 or $8.75 each! Each low net winners “PAINFULLY” realizes that he was just a stroke away from garnering the low net prize alone.  Like the 2 footer lip out Michael Jan suffered on a hole number 18 for a double (lot like the PGA melt down guy on #18) or John Hassett who shot 6 shots worse on the back with 2 9’s. John claims that he lost focus after trying to be “friendly” with the cart girl who might be around his grand daughters age. Golf can indeed be a cruel game for us all.

Cluster Spires GC was in good shape (no doubt preparing for the MD qualifier) with greens rolling nicely and fairways also in good shape. For a cheap muni, it was still playing fast and furious under a very hot and sunny conditions. In fact Lift, Clean, and Cheat was probably not needed as any tee balls that happened to land in the fairway (very rare in Knuckleheads golf), was rewarded with a nice lie most of the time. Overall, everyone played relatively decent on a course that is not that familiar with the usual knuckleheads on an ideal scoring day. But as usual the pace of play was lot to be desired as 2 gossipy lady golfers behind group 3 who waited all day quit after 15 holes – driving by the last group cursing(may be even gave us a finger or two?).

Most of Hassett’s CASH grab came from the clears. Due to the high handicap firewall we have in Brian Murphy, unable to play that day, there was no firewall. John Hassett took full advantage of supplanting Brian Murphy’s 2 pop firewall block by snatching 2 out of 4 total CLEARS for a handsomely take home prize of $45!  He finagled a clear with a smooth 6 iron on #7 163 yard par 3 and a CTP. He then took a net birdie for a clear on a tough #14 par 4 which I’m sure Murphy would have blocked. Duffy took a clear with a nice birdie on #5 and Kwang took a clear on #4 with a 40 foot downhill L to R breaking slider for a birdie.

Johnny Braun took a CTP on hole #13 playing 134 yards. He claimed he flushed his hybrid (19 or 21 degrees) to 10 feet but missed his birdie. And like the Knucklehead that he is, the committee was told that he bribed a maintenance man to turn on the sprinkler after his group to slow down and deaden the rollout of the following groups shots. The trick worked as Kwang’s shot failed to roll out to get inside of Johnny’s shot and missed out on the CTP by a RCH.

Group 2 consist of Brian Duffy, Jeff Gruel, Bruce Grau, and Andy WD. Bruce Grau smoothed his 7 iron for a CTP on hole #2 capturing his ONLY prize money win for the day. Playing the monstrosity of 207 yards par 3 from the white tees, Brian Duffy flushed his 3 wood to get on the green for the CTP on hole #16. This hole forced Dick Markle to crush his driver to get on the green but it was still not close enough to beat out Brian Duffy. Andy WD played well enough to split 2nd low net prize of $25 with Bravo Braun.

Last group consist of Kwang, Michael Jan, Dick and Jerome Lyons. Jerome Lyons refused to be photographed for whatever reason so we had to resort to what you see here. Jerome and Michael Jan caught fire on the front 9 as they both fired a low round of 39’s. Kwang informed them after the turn that they are mano y mano leaders of the group and like the clock work, they both clocked in with a pair of 8’s on #10. Jerome’s wheel came off further on par 3 #16 registering with a 7 but he still managed to shoot net 76 to split the 3rd prize with Kwang.

Dick’s usual pinpoint accuracy on driving, irons, and putting did not show up that day. The last group observed at least 5 lip-outs for Dick that cost him dearly. Dick limped in with a 93 and failed to win any CTP’s or Clears. BUT he was still 7 shots better than the DEAD LAST guy Bruce Grau who managed to do worse than his 18 handicap by shooting a century. For whatever reason, he also insisted on getting a solo picture of himself because he didn’t like the way he looked in the group photo. See photos and you be the judge.

All in all, everyone was in good spirits and we had no major controversies. Everyone had a beautiful day to play golf and enjoy cold brews and sandwiches afterwards. Looking forward to the next outing.