Blue Wins Easily

October 13, 1998 - Concord, MI

Blue won the Concord Cup for the third time here today, with its second dominating effort is as many years. Again, the 15 1/2 to 8 1/2 difference was largely made in the alternate shot round, which Blue won five matches to one. Blue captain Brad Juday simply had the better golfers to deploy, and Red skipper Mike Lamarra was unable to find any combinations to overcome the disadvantage.

It was the first cup with no rookies, every single participant who had ever played in the Cup returned to fill out a record twenty-four spots. Blue's chief of bunting, the talented Mike Walters, returned like a phoenix (from Tucson) and won all three of his matches, extending his cup record to 7-1-1. Blue again got a solid effort from its senior Dennis L. Hackett, who won all three of his matches, including a four-three singles win while give nine strokes to Jamie Grace! Hackett (6-1-2) now has a better cup record than son/advisor Jeff, who is no slouch himself (7-2-3). Lou Boudreau showed his competitive strength in winning all three of his matches, including a a four and three singles win over David Best, who lost all three matches in his first full event. And Mark Williams broke out to win all three of his matches, evening his overall Cup record at 6-6.

Lamarra and Juday provided the unique wrinkle of identifying the pairings for both Saturday rounds on Thursday night, a step welcomed by many players as well as the Concord Hills management. This left two days for speculation and a little talk, and kept things much smoother. (For the opposite results, see the 1996 story).

The best ball was kept close by some great play from the Red players, especially at eighteen, which often does not see much action. Down one, Jamie Grace hit a 302 yard drive, and then a pitching wedge to eight feet. He two-putted for par, saving a half-point against Charlie Shoop and Dennis Hackett Sr. Mike Lamarra, even with rival Hackett and Mark Smith, hit a brilliant 3-wood from 225 yards, and won the hole with a par to claim a point. After the first round, it was still close, with Red down only 3 1/2 to 2 1/2.

In every year but the first, the play in the foursomes segment has determined the winner, and there has been a clearly superior team each year. It seems that the alternate-shot format gets the best players to rise, or perhaps it is the place where the lesser shots cannot be glossed. This year continued the trend, as blue won five of the six (captain Juday tanked one point, putting himself with 1-2 struggler Ron George, in a clearly overmatched team). Given handicaps, Blue should have been expected to win the other five matches; any Red victory would have been an upset. All of the matches were reasonably close, and lasted until at least the 15th hole, but Blue established a nearly insurmountable five-point lead going into Sunday.

On Sunday, Red did get strong performances from some players. AC Shoop beat Bill Lamarra, who was not able to follow up his strong performance in 1998. Ed Smith won his third point of the competition, pasting Bob Ligon (see Pastings). Tom Bres continued his dominance of Ron George (see Rivalries), helped by his refusal to give George a 12-inch putt on the sixth. Bres and George both played stellar rounds (at least six strokes below their handicaps), maybe for the first time in one of their head-to-head matches. Dennis Hackett got some revenge against rival Brett Smith, nearly pasting him as well. And Dave Marcinkowski completed a strong cup with an easy win over Mark Smith.

But Blue was too strong, and easily won the other singles matches (no singles matches reached the 18th holes, and no blue winner let red go past 16). Charlie Shoop finished an undefeated cup by beating "lights-on/lights off" rival Steve, Mark Williams beat Ron George Sr., and captain Juday beat Frank George, sealing up a 1-8 cup performance by the struggling George family. Mike Walters took his stroke and pasted Mike Lamarra. Jeff Hackett drew the surprising Jon DeAngels, an attempt by Lamarra to sneak a lower-players upset, and beat him 5&3.

This match was largely over by Saturday, leaving players to speculate about rules changes that might close competition. The consensus was that some changes could be made, but that a big factor was the inexplicable decline in the games of the red players, who are capable of playing much better.