Blue Crushes Red By Seven Points

September 30, 2001

Overcoming the loss of two key players and the addition of a Red ringer, Blue destroyed Red at the 2001 Concord Cup, matching the biggest margin of victory in the event's eight year history. Blue won 15 1/2 to 8 1/2 under bright sunny skies and sixty-five degree temperatures, retaining the Cup yet again, and winning the matches for the fourth time in five years.

Hopes were high for the Red team entering the event, for a lot of reasons. Captain AC Shoop had shaken up the normal teams, only one team had played together before, and felt very comfortable with his new approach. He had also fired up the Red team with inspirational e-mail and strategy. Charlie Shoop and Brett Smith, two experienced Blue players that had played nearly every match in the history of the cup, were unable to attend the event for family reasons. And for the first time since 1996, Red entered the matches with a significantly lower total handicap than Blue. Red felt like it could build on the momentum of its tie in the previous year, and several Red players predicted a runaway.

Four Ball

Red also added Vince Olenik, a former golf pro and 3-handicapper. Olenik was widely predicted to swing the balance, and looked formidable reaching three of four par fives easily in Friday's practice round. Olenik was paired against Blue's best player, Jeff Hackett in both Saturday matches, and was only able to pull out a half point. In the morning match, Olenik's partner Ron George Sr. shot a net 32 on the back nine (gross 41) including a natural birdie on 15 and pars on 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17. Olenik, who birdied 14,was in position to win the match on 18, but three-putted, the second putt spinning all the way around the cup, and the match was halved. Hackett, who shot 72 on his ball, called it the best match he's played in at the Cup. As the morning concluded, Red failed to win any matches, halved only two, and Blue led 5-1.

Eighth Wonder: Eight played very tough again. Above, from the 8th tee on Sunday, Tom Bres hit to the twelfth rough. He eventually re-teed and halved the hole with Mark Williams with a seven. On Saturday, Dennis Hackett hit from the 8th tee to the 16th tee. Nobody parred the hole in the singles matches, but on Saturday, the entire foursome of Bob Ligon, Tim Seelig, Frank George and Mike Lamarra made four.

The other halved match was between captains Dennis Hackett Sr. and rookie Bob Walters and AC Shoop and Jamie Grace. With solid play on the front, Red jumped to a three-hole lead, but bogeyed 17 and doubled the difficult 18th to let Blue gain the half point.

David Best got up and down on 12, 13, and 14, helping Blue win five of eight holes on the back to beat DeAngelis and Hackett 3&1. Bob Ligon and Tim Seelig beat Mike Lamarra and Frank George 3&2, as Lamarra struggled on the front side.

Bill Lamarra and Brad Juday coughed up a three-hole lead on six, nine, ten and twelve, before recovering to win the match on the 18th hole.

Some of the best play of the exciting morning came in the match between Steve Shoop and Ed Smith for Red, and Mike Walters and Mark Williams for Blue. With some good ham-and-egging, the teams were even after nine. "Remmo" parred ten and eleven, for net birdies, and Blue led by two. Then the eagles flew. At 12, Steve Shoop knocked his approach off the large tree to the right of the green and it rolled to two feet for a net three.

On the 13th, Ed Smith survived when his tee ball clanked back in bounds off a tree, and went on to chip in for a net eagle three. Then at fourteen, while Walters made a natural birdie, Smith hit his approach to six feet, and canned the putt for a net eagle four.

Blue was now down one, but in a topsy-turvy back nine which saw only one halved hole, it was their turn. Williams parred 15 for a net birdie, then Walters birdied the 16th to put Blue up. After they halved 17 with pars, Walters managed a par at 18, and Blue won 2 up. In all, the back nine featured three holes won with net eagles, and four with net birdies.

In a cap to a very slow morning, the match finished around 2:00, more than five hours after it started. With the victory, Blue moved up to a five-one lead, and for the first time in Cup history, a team was shut out of victories in the better ball matches.

Anchor?: Vince Olenik predicted he and partner Ed Smith would shoot even par or better in foursome play. Instead, they stumbled to play two-over "fives" and were pasted 6&5. Above, instead of taking an unplayable and trying to get up and down at the third, Olenik instead tried to blast out, and with this shot embedded the ball into the bank. He finished 0-2-1.

Foursomes

After three afternoon matches, Blue led 8-1, and it looked like a complete runaway. Captain Denny Hackett got solid play from partner Mark Smith, the MVP for the Cup for Blue, and easily beat AC Shoop and Ron Sr. 4&2. Bob Ligon (3-0) and David Best (2-0-1) easily handled Frank George and Jamie Grace . They went out with a 40 on the front, as Bob raised questions from Red about his 16 handicap. Jeff Hackett and Ron George went out with a 39 on the front-nine, and coasted to 6&5 victory over Ed Smith and Vince Olenik, an anti-climactic finish to what was supposed to be a good match.

Red was reeling, since it was not only down 8-1, but it was trailing in one match, and even in another. But it turned things around a little. After trailing by two through four holes, Steve Shoop and Lou Boudreau caught fire on the back nine and won five straight holes. They played eleven through fifteen at a very solid one-over par, and beat Bill Lamarra and Bob Walters 5&3. Tim Seelig and Mark Williams were one of only two teams that had played together before, and they lost for the second time.Bres and DeAngelis beat them 2&1 while parring only three holes

Mike Walters was assigned to get the "inspiration point," he was clearly outmatched with partner Brad Juday against Mike Lamarra and Dennis Hackett. But Juday played very strongly on the front nine, and they led by one after twelve holes. Then Hackett and Lamarra won sixteen and seventeen as the Blue team doubled and then bogeyed, and Red had pulled within four points of Blue going into Sunday.

Sunday

Eight to four is not an insurmountable lead. Blue had trailed by seven to five in 2000, but won seven of twelve points to retain the Cup. In 1999, Blue won eight of the twelve matches. Still, to take the Cup, Red would have to win 8 1/2, and no one has ever won 8 1/2 points on Sunday.

AC Shoop refused to go out quietly in his early match against Denny Hackett Sr. Down five at the twelfth hole, he got up and down from 153 yards to make six and stay alive. The shot started a streak for the Red captain, who won 12, 13, and 14. Denny Hackett got the half point with bogey at the ever-challenging 15th, but AC fought for the other half with wins at 16 and 17. Hackett finally closed it out at 18, 2 up, and Blue was three and a half points away. One of two foursomes to see both matches all the way to 18, the other match in the opening group featured great golf down the stretch. Down one, Dennis Hackett matched David Best with pars at 15, 16, and 17, fighting to stay in the match. He parred the difficult 18th to halve the match, the second time Hackett and Best have gone to 18 against each other.

In the second group, Bill Lamarra faced Vince Olenik in the second Boss vs. Employee matchup in Cup history (Frank George beat Brett Smith 1 up in the other). This time, the boss won 1 up, with stellar play down the stretch. Lamarra hit a beatiful shot over the right side trees at 14, making a five-for-four to take a 2 up lead. Olenik parred 15 to and won 16 with a bogey to even the match as they went to 17. But Olenik blew his tee shot on 17 all the way to an area right of the 18th tee. Lamarra made three to win the hole, then made six-for-five at 18 to keep his lead and take the win.

Sunday Placements: Sunday's pin placements were among the toughest in recent memory, with several very difficult spots, including this one on the 7th.

Meanwhile Mike Lamarra won the first five holes against Tim Seelig. Seelig fought back, and when Lamarra hit three balls OB off the twelfth tee, Seelig pulled to within two. Apparently the leisurely drive along twelve helped Lamarra recover. He parred 13, birdied 14, and birdied 15, and won the match 4&3, winning twice for the first time since 1994.

The third group plodded along, so the match between Mark Smith and Frank George in the fourth group ended earlier. Smith might have been secretly happy that Dave Marcenkowski was held out of this year's event with an ankle injury, since Kow had won three straight years. Instead, Smith and George would face each other in singles for the first time since their dramatic match to end the 1994 cup. Smitty's much improved game appears to be outpacing his handicap. His five strokes figured into three wins and a halve, and he won 5&3. Smith's point moved Blue to within one point.

The fifth group's pace slowed to a crawl. Ed Smith recovered from his Mark Williams/Vince Olenik-induced haze of Saturday, and trounced Mike Walters four and three. Both players shot snowmen on the 12th, but Ed was getting a stroke, and took a one-up lead to win his third straight hole. He then won the 13th with 5-net-4, the 14th with 5-net-4, and closed the match with a par at 15. Smith's six straight holes gave him a 4&3 victory. In the other match in the foursome, Jamie Grace got out to a four hole lead through five and never was challenged, winning easily 5&3.

Blue closed within a half point when Jon DeAngelis three-putted the 16th hole. He had fought back against Ron George, who was in a commanding position coming to twelfth green. Three-up, George was on the fringe in four, while DeAngelis had a tough two-putt to make 7. But George "TC-Chen'ed" a chip and two-putted to make 8 and lose the hole. DeAngelis lost 14 when he hit his first shot OB right. He then tried to kill his fourth, and fell over, recovering to make seven. He won 15 with a par and closed within two holes. At 16, George pushed his bunt approach under the large tree, and was forced to chip out toward 17th tee. He sat next to DeAngelis but lay 3 instead of 2. DeAngelis' chip went past the tough pin, and somehow stopped at the peak of the hill on the left side of the green. There was so much slope his ball rolled when he tried to put it back down. When his second putt slid just right, George sealed up a half point, bringing Blue to 12 points. DeAngelis won 17 with a par, but matched fives at 18 to lose 1 up to George (3-0 in spite of being a huge underdog on Steve Shoop's spurious handicapping).

MVP: Mark Smith was named MVP and went 2-0-1. He said it was the most fun he'd had playing at the Concord Cup, and even gave a rare smile. David Best, Bob Ligon, Ron George, Jeff Hackett, and Captain Denny Hackett were also undefeated.

Mark Williams clinched the cup with a five foot putt for par at the 17th, which made him Dormie and put Blue at 12 1/2. This capped a great comeback, which started at 12. Bres had extended his lead from one-up to three-up with a jackpot special, going 7-7-7 on the last three holes of the front nine. When he made six-net-five on the 12th, he stood to go up by four. But Remmo played the difficult 12th according to the textbook, and two-putted for a natural five, one of only two natural fives made all day at 12. He then won the 13th with a double, and as Bres drove to the 14th tee he told Lou that he was in big trouble, even though he was up two. Williams won the next three holes with bogeys, and parred seventeen to guarantee the half. At 18, Art pulled driver for the first time, and hit it OB. His next shot went all the way to the 10th rough (that's not a typo, it went over the ninth fairway, over the big area between nine and ten, all the way to 10's rough).

It took ten minutes to find a ball as pandemonium settled on the hole. The fourth group hit into the third, Frank George tracked down a group in the clubhouse and asked if they had stolen Art's ball, and then the ball was found. A couple shots later, Art conceded to Williams, who won 2 up.

Bob Ligon and Lou Boudreau brought a record sixth singles match to the 18th. Boudreau had jumped to a three hole lead through seven -- he nearly holed out from the fairway at one, and then Ligon struggled with the trees. But Ligon won five straight holes with a five-net-four at the 8th, pars at nine and ten, and Boudreau doubles at eleven and twelve. Ligon extended his lead with a five-net-four at the 14th, and then it was Boudreau's turn to come back. He went par-par-par, and pulled to within one. Ligon got the half-point with par at 17, but then knocked his tee shot out of bounds at 18. He recovered to make six-net-five, and closed out the match when Boudreau's par putt came up short.

Jeff Hackett started quickly against Steve Shoop, but lost his lead. He played the first four holes even par, and led three up. But Shoop fought back, using his strokes, and parring to beat Hackett's birdie at the ninth. He made par at 11 to close the match to even, but then lost the next three holes, starting with a snowman on the 12th, a double at the 13th, and then a six-net-five to lose to Hackett's chip in birdie at the 14th. After a shouting match to encourage the slow fifth group to move along at 15, both players parred, making Hackett dormie. With par at 16, he closed the match to win 4&2.

In the final match, Ron George Sr. beat Bob Walters in a match that stayed fairly close throughout. Walters led by two through three holes, George led by one after six, and Walters led by two after 13 holes. Perhaps then the rookie pressure that many have felt got to Walters as it had gotten to Olenik. He went double-triple, and then at sixteen, George hit an eight-iron to within eight inches of the hole, and then parred the 17th to win 2&1.

So in a rather undramatic fashion, Blue had overcome the predictions, the no-shows, the late-shows, and the strategic emails to dominate Red once again.