2006: Blue Dominates 14-6

Blue's B's bolster boorish Best behavior by beating Red badly.

October 8, 2005

Results

Blue jumped out to a 4-1 lead on Saturday morning and never looked back. Captain David Best rankled Red by drinking out of the Concord Cup on Saturday night, but then backed it up by pasting his counterpart Steve Shoop on Sunday.

Blue won 14-6, and while the eight point margin was the widest ever, there were some very close matches throughout the competition, and especially on Sunday.

Four-Ball

The first match pitted captains Best and Shoop along with Brandon Boudreau and Ron George Sr., and it was very close most of the way. Ron Sr. hit a long putt on #4 for a net par, and then got up and down on five and six to give Red an early one up lead. Brandon Boudreau came back and made putts of eight, five and eight feet respectively on seven through nine, and they made the turn even. Blue trailed by one after a best ball double on the 12th (certainly not the first), but made pars on the next four holes to take a 2-up lead. Steve Shoop birdied 17 to give Red hope, but another best ball double lost them the match, and Red won 2 up.

Bill Sedwick, playing in his first Concord Cup, hit a 25-footer to save par at #2, and partner Mike Walters played well on the front as Blue pulled 3-up through nine and won easily 4&3.

Jamie Grace and Mike Lamarra have traditionally been one of the best teams, but Bob Walters has been on a tear the last three years. With Denny Hackett Sr. and Bob getting a lot of strokes from Mike (8 & 11), they capitalized, and led by two at the turn. But Red parred 10 to win, no one had better than 7 on the 12th hole, and Red evened the match with a par at 15. Blue won 16, but Red won 17, and Blue made net four on 18 to win 1up.

Tom Bres and Jon "Lou" DeAngelis never trailed Chris Wilker and Brian Carter, but at the 7th, Lou's tee shot hit the hole marker sign and ended up on the 11th tee box. He then hit into trees on the right, then behind the trees on the left of the 100 yard marker, onto the green, and lipped out for par. The six was good enough to halve the hole, and Red would eventually win 4 & 3.

Vince Olenik, playing with Frank George, was quite pleased to play Ron George and Brad Juday. Only 7 hours earlier, Juday had left George hanging outside Comerica Park. The Tigers had beaten the Yankees by a big number, and Juday had asked for a ride home, but never showed up. Ready to make the long drive to Concord, Ron had to wait (along with Frank and Brandon) and Brad never called. Olenik, always a premier instigator, prodded and prodded to promote dissension. And while Brad's been known over the years to chirp a little, even at Blue members like Jeff Hackett, this pairing stayed focused. Perhaps to make up for his faux pas, Brad stared well, with 4 for 3 on the first, and a winning 5 for 4 on the third hole. Blue led by three after four holes. Red fought back to close to one, but by the 11th were down three again, and the teams halved five straight holes. Blue's 3&2 win put the team up 4-1, a great start.

Foursomes

Traditional captaining strategy might have led Red Captain Shoop to gamble a little to try to gain points. Instead, he tried to lock in at least one by pairing his best two players together. Mike Lamarra and Vince Olenik handed Brandon Boudreau his first match loss ever. After Red doubled the first, Lamarra hit it stiff at the second for a Red birdie, then Olenik hit it on the green pin high off the tee at #5 (the card says birdie, but most likely Blue conceded when they couldn't make better than five). The sixth hole in this matched was halved with triple bogeys, closed with a tough putt by Vinnie, and Blue struggled, bogeying the 7th, tripling the 8th, and doubling the 9th. They made a big bogey putt at the 12th to help stave off a pasting, and then made a little noise before being shut down 4&3 at the 15th. Captain Shoop had his second point.

Tom Bres and Jon DeAngelis tried for their second point together, this time against the Walters brothers, who have put away childhood grudges to form a strong alternate shot team. In 2005 they won their alternate shot match 6 & 4. This year, they strung together bogeys, and then three straight pars from five through seven to take a three hole lead by the turn. They won the match 4 & 2.

Brian Carter and Bill Sedwick got off to a three hole lead through five, including a win with triple bogey at the third hole when opponents Jamie Grace and Dennis Hackett Jr. made an eight. Hackett and Grace fought back to even the match and take the lead at the 11th, and some fairly solid bogey golf in the tough alternate shot format kept this match close all the way to 18. Blue took a one hole lead by parring the 17th, and then both teams made double at the ever-tough 18th to give Blue a 1 up victory.

Chris Wilker and Ron George trailed by a hole after the 6th against AC Shoop and Ron George Sr., but strung together seven bogeys on the back nine to win 4&2.

Captain Shoop was determined to get his point back from Best, and with Frank George opened fast against Best and partner Dennis Hackett Sr. Shoop and George played a very strong first seven holes -- their alternate shot two-over par score is almost unheard of in these competitions. Rattled, Blue tripled the eighth and bogeyed the ninth. Red's front-nine 40 was one of the best alternate shot starts ever, and put them up five at the turn. They left 12 up six with a great chance for a pasting, and it must have been on their mind because they tripled the 13th, but won easily 5 & 3.

Pairs

Captain Best felt good about his 7-3 lead, and good about his pairings for Sunday. So he celebrated, and celebrated some more. After a while, he treaded on new ground, and decided to drink from the Cup. His Blue teammates weren't sure how to react, and his Red opponents were infuriated. Time will tell if we ever see it again. But Sunday would show that there's more curse in killing a mole than in drinking from the Cup.

In his second year, Brandon Boudreau's been a huge contributor to the Blue cause. In the first match, he got off to a quick four hole lead against Frank George, whose front nine wasn't nearly as strong as the day before. George had tough going on both morning rounds, but he rallied and cut the lead to one by bogeying the 8th, parring the 10th & 11th, and getting an early concession from Boudreau on the 12th (in fact, both the first two matches saw the 12th conceded well back in the fairway, which is why Shoop has nicknamed this hole "Concede.") Boudreau got up and down for pars at 16 and 17 to stop the bleeding and win the match 2& 1.

In the captains match, Steve Shoop's teammates certainly hoped he'd paste the cocky David Best, it was Best who handed out the pasting, 6&5. Even after all the celebrating, Best managed to come out two over through seven, which was good enough to gain a four hole lead even while giving up a stroke. Shoop got it back to two by the turn, but then double or tripled each of the next four holes to lose 6&5.

Denny Hackett and AC Shoop have one of the best rivalries of the Cup, and they were back at it again, in what was probably their best match ever. Denny led the rivalry 6-2-1 coming in, but it was AC who seized control of this match. Open with six consecutive fives, he opened up a three hole lead. His seven at the the 7th hole was good for another win, and then a strong bogey at the 8th put him a head by four. But Hackett regained his form, and won five of the next six holes. AC faced the difficult tee shot at 15 certainly down in spirits, he'd given up a four hole lead, but he bore down and made par at 15 and a strong par at 16 to retake the lead. Now Denny felt the same way, but "cowboyed up" at 17 to make a great par against AC's bogey. The 18th is tough for players of all ages, but Hackett and AC reached the green in three. With the longest putt ever made at the 18th, Hackett sank a 30 foot putt to win this great match 1 up. Even better, it was this 3o-footer that clinched the cup for Blue.

After the 2005 8&7 pasting, Best was very happy to get a rematch between Mike Walters and Dennis Hackett, but odds are Dennis was happy to have the chance to wipe the slate clean. And this match was much better. "Wally" played solidly early, but after an opening double, Hackett followed up his stroke-hole win at four with a birdie at the fifth to take a one hole lead. Walters birdied the ninth to pull back to even. He extended his streak with a bogey at ten and then a birdie at the 11th. When both players parred 12, they did something no other group would come close to matching that day. Still, the lead was etched in by the 11th -- the players halved the next six holes with good scores, and this excellent match ended 2&1.

The next two matches were Vince Olenik against Ron George, and Brad Juday against Tom Bres. At the first hole, the foursome had a total of 13 putts! But the Olenik match settle down, as Vinnie made birdie to win the 2nd, George made par with his stroke at the fourth, and then another net birdie at the 9th to take a one hole lead. At the seventh hole, Olenik found a path out of the woods on the right and hit a chip to 8 feet -- a theme he would repeat later at the 17th. Olenik birdied the 10th to regain the tie. Then at 13, George hooked a ball into the woods on the left which bounced back into the fairway. He parlayed that luck and his stroke into a one hole lead. But Olenik again birdied at 14, reaching in two, to regain the tie. He bogeyed to lose the 15th, but at 16, for the 3rd time in the match, he made birdie to regain a tie, this time by rolling in a 51' foot putt. The 17th was crazy theatre. Olenik apparently hit his tee shot OB, and hit a provisional. George let up and put the ball in the valley of sin, and then Olenik found the ball, somehow in bounds but heavily wooded on the left side of the green. It took him two chips to get out, but he was on in three. George chipped about seven feet by the lower left pin, and then made a horrible downhill putt, so that he faced a ten footer for bogey. Vince started to concede the putt, but was quickly hushed by his Red teammates, and George made the putt to go one up. George was coming to the 18th in his pairs match for the 6th year in a row, and was up a hole, and getting a stroke. In what Olenik rightly claims was a terrible move, he hit a driver, bounced a ball off the right side trees into the left side OB, and hit another OB. Olenik tied the match without working at the 18th.

Brad Juday and Tom Bres have had some ugly matches, and some exciting ones, and this one fell into both categories. Bres went up two with a par at the 2nd, but then hit his tee shot into the trees at the third. Proving the adage that you're never out of a hole at the Concord Cup, he saved a halve with a six. Juday caught a little fire with pars at five, and the "Juday" hole, and then made a great birdie at the 9th to take a one hole lead. Art would immediately come back with a par at 10, then a great par at the 11th after punching out to 175 yards. Both players doubled the 12th, and then Juday bogeyed the 13th to even the match. Art made a great birdie at 15 to take the lead, but doubled sixteen to give it right back. With par at 17 and then a solid bogey at the 18th, Bres hung on to win 2 up. His back nine 44 gave Red its first point, and he concluded a 2-1 weekend.

Chris Wilker had struggled in his first two Sunday pairs matches, but found a much closer match with Mike Lamarra. Neither player could get hot early, and while both players held leads, they were never by more than a hole, for the entire match! After parring the difficult sixth hole, Wilker lost the next two, but he would even the match with a seven net six at the 14th. He then birdied the 15th to take a one up lead, which he took to the 7th tee. A solid par by Lamarra evened the match at 17, and playing 18 for the first time in a pairs match, Wilker felt its difficulty. Lamarra was conceded the match one up.

The always entertaining Jamie Grace has the best Red record (see player records ), but he is wasn't too proud to take six strokes from someone twenty years older, the rookie Bill Sedwick. Giving strokes to Jamie is tough, because he can go on hot streaks, but for Sedwick, he just wondered why the rookie was given such a late, gallery-intensive pairing. The match was close throughout. Sedwick parred one to take the led, then Grace took three straight holes with two pars, and led by two after the 4th (his stroke helping his double at four). But Sedwick fought back with a par at give and a bogey at eight, and in spite of giving two more strokes, he was back to even by the turn. The players exchanged pars, but then Grace lost his way, with an "X" at 12, a quad at 13, and a bogey at 14. Sedwick lead by three with four to play. The pendulum swings, and Jamie knows as well as anyone that no lead is safe (he has seven ties and many have involved big comebacks). Grace made pars at the 15th and 17th along with a net bogey at 16 to even the match. The players struggled home with doubles at the 18th, and Grace had yet another tie, while Bill Sedwick finished an unbeaten rookie year.

Jon DeAngelis has the best "Pastings" record of the Red players. He has never been pasted, and he's given two pastings out. So it was a huge surprise to see him down six through ten holes against Brian Carter. DeAngelis couldn't escape the double train on the front nine, and his triple at the tenth put him down six. Carter then hit a massive drive to 80 yards out on the 11th, right down the middle, made par and went up seven, with seven to play. The 12th bit Carter too, he had one of the 9 "doubles or others" that were made on Sunday, followed up by another double at 13, and DeAngelis remained unpasted. In fact he held on for two more holes, but lost the match with bogey at the 15th.

All that was left as far as drama was to see if Bob Walters could become the first player to string together three 3-0 events. After threatening to quit if he couldn't win at least one match, Walters had caught fire the last three years, and his previous two Sundays included a pasting and a 4&3 win. Clearly, his early to bed strategy was helping him. Today was no different, as the only bright spot on the front nine for Ron George Sr. was hitting the flagstick with his second shot at #4. Walters led by four at the turns. Completing 12's mastery, they traded eights at the 12th, and George won 13 and 14 as Bob teetered a little. But he righted the ship at 15 and finished the match 4 & 2 at the 16th.

All in all, the singles matches were much more exciting than the overall score might indicate. Red would be forced to lie in wait for another year, and odds are it would come up with an anti-Best strategy for 2007.