Party Time – 1st Half in the Books

Congratulations to everyone who played nine holes without dying Tuesday. Results and Final First Half Standings are now posted.

In a pretty tight finish, the Wolfe Team emerges as 1^st Half Champions with a 1-point margin over the Loew Team (don’t tell Jack – he’ll be steamed), 1.5 over the McEvilly Team, and 3 over the Nelson Team, which made a late push. The Wolfe Team will be making their 3^rd straight playoff appearance, in quest of their 3^rd straight league championship.

Congrats to Dave Delveaux on his 38 Tuesday night. I single him out because I somehow didn’t get his name down on the list that went to the newspaper. Dave Rieves was the low shooter with a 36, including six pars. In addition to those two, Andy Taylor, Jason Thomas, and new golfer Jeff Pollei shot 37’s, and Will Nagel and Chris Weber shot 39’s.

By the way, Jeff Pollei (who was subbing for David Miller Tuesday) would like to make himself available to the league as a sub. I will add him to the sub list, but his contact information is 608-263-7332 (w) and jpollei@uwsa.edu. Jeff’s line score was 001010111 (which is actually a binary score of 87). He really fell apart there at the end. (Edit: I just realized this doesn't mean much unless I explain that his line score shows zeroes for pars, 1's for bogeys, etc.)

Now that the first half is over, it’s time to relax a bit. Next Tuesday is the league scramble, followed by a world-famous Bill Scheer cookout. I got dinner payment from most of you on Tuesday. I will collect ($9.50) from the rest this coming Tuesday. You are not required to stay for dinner. Let me know if you plan not to stay. Tee times are set and are posted on the blog - upper right-hand corner.

Here is the updated list of the top Sy Brandt Sportsmanship Award contenders.

1. Dave Wolfe 19.00
2. Adam Hopkins 18.00
3. Steve McDonnell 15.63
4. Dave Delveaux 15.25
5. Paul Schuettler 14.88
6. Steve Smith 14.75
7. Ed Corcoran 14.63
8. Andy Taylor 13.50 (tie for 8th)
9. Pat McEvilly 13.50 (tie for 8th)
10. Ed Meachen 13.38

Week 9 Pairings - June 23

Things to remember for Tuesday:

1. Tuesday is our last chance to catch the McEvilly team for the first-half pennant. It starts all over in July.
   
2. The League Scramble is next week. I will post tee-times in several places. Make sure your teammates know your Scramble tee time.
3. Bring $9.50 for the cookout/buffet on the 30th. I will be waiting to collect when you get off the 9th green.
4. It's gonna be HOT. Here are the Extreme Heat Guidelines: (1) Hydrate. (2) No Speedos on the course.

There is a long, drawn-out explanation of pairings at the bottom of this post (in case you're interested).

4:52 & 5:00	Wolfe vs. Moritz
David Wolfe	16		Paul Schuettler	13
Adam Hopkins	17		Bob Lomasney	14
Paul Barnett	14		Tom Hidde	15
Mike Sanders	18		Bob Moritz	16
5:07 & 5:15	Nelson vs. Miller
Steve McDonnell	9		David Miller	12
A Tomaszewski	29		Ed Meachen	13
Mike Williams	11		Doug Hoerr	13
Brad Nelson	21		Charlie Hoslet	14
5:22 & 5:30	McEvilly vs. Kraus
Dave Delveaux	10		Lynn Paulson	10
Ed Corcoran	14		Steve Smith	14
Pat McEvilly	13		Andy Taylor	11
Herb Stanford	24		Mike Kraus	16
5:37 & 5:46	Thoeny vs. Williams
Travis Thoeny	4		Dave Rieves	6
Ed Molter	12		Matt Blouin	15
John Loescher	16		Bob Crowe	18
Rob Zimmerman	23		Ron Weiss	20
5:53 & 6:00	Dvorak vs. Loew
Jason Thomas	9		Chris Weber	8
Mike Warren	11		Scott Gomez	8
Jeff Dvorak	13		Shawn McGettigan	13
Phil Julson	20		Doug Smedema	33

In the Rule Book, I made a cursory attempt to explain how I do pairings during the season. I also posted more detail on the subject in this blog in May 2008.

Since I've updated the pairing methodology a bit this year (and will do so again next year) here's the explanation.

During the 1st half, my goal is to have each player play three rounds with each of his teammates, and to give each golfer a mix of first group and second group starts. In order to do that, I put together a grid that shows the pairings for each of the nine weeks. Ranking each golfer 1-4, by handicap, the grid looks like this. What it shows is that, in week 1, the #4 and #1 golfer for each team go out in the first group and the #2 and #3 golfer follow them in the second group. (1's play against 1's, 4's against 4's, etc.)

Week:	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
	4	1	1	3	4	4	2	1	1
	1	3	2	2	2	3	3	3	2
	2	2	3	1	3	2	4	2	3
	3	4	4	4	1	1	1	4	4

During the 2nd half, then, I'll keep the teammates paired the same way (i.e. week 10 the same as week 1, etc.) but pit them against the opposite two golfers from the opposing team. This meets the goal of having everybody be in a foursome with everybody else in the league.

On paper, this meets all my goals. In practice, though, people's handicaps are fluid, and a golfer may be his team's #2 golfer one week, and #3 (or #4) the next. This means the goals are not usually completely met.

To that end, I have used week 9 matchups to "even out" the teammate pairings and get them as close as I can to "three rounds with each teammate." (I think next year, I'll use both weeks 8 and 9 to do that.) I only had to manipulate (i.e. deviate from the original grid) two foursomes to even things out.

This is probably more information than any of you are interested in, but there you have it.

Results, Scramble News, Etc.

Results from Week 8 are now posted, but who really even wants to read about the McEvilly team moving one step closer to locking up the first half championship? Well, maybe the other three teams (Wolfe, Loew, Nelson) within striking distance with one week to play.

Scramble News: After a brief and unscientific survey of golfers as they came in on Tuesday, I have decided that the league scramble will consist of the already existing ten teams. Well, that simplifies my job! (Just for grins, I'll post in a comment what the mixed teams would have been.)

Using the random number generator feature of Excel, I randomly generated the order of play for the scramble. Here are the resulting tee times. Captains, if you can find a willing trading partner, feel free to trade tee times. Just let me know you've done so. (Okay - Here's a confession. It's not random that I have the first tee time. I took it so I can be done when the golfers come in and report scores, and to answer any issues the clubhouse or golfers have about the cookout. An abuse of power? Perhaps, but I'm going to just call it a job requirement.)

June 30 Scramble Tee Times
4:52 - Wolfe
5:00 - McEvilly
5:07 - Thoeny
5:15 - Nelson
5:22 - Dvorak
5:30 - Loew
5:37 - Kraus
5:45 - Moritz
5:53 - Miller
6:00 - Williams

Back to this week's results. Congrats to Scott Gomez, with a league-low 36, and Lynn Paulson and Travis Thoeny on their 38's. Only three birdies this week out of 351 holes. I think people were thinking rainout and weren't prepared to golf.

Here is the updated top ten for the Sy Brandt Sportsmanship Award.

1 Dave Wolfe 15.75
2 Adam Hopkins 14.75
3 Ed Corcoran 14.63
4 Paul Schuettler 14.13
5 Steve McDonnell 13.38
6 Steve Smith 12.88
7 Dave Delveaux 12.75
8 Mike Warren 12.13
9 Andy Taylor 11.50
9 Pat McEvilly 11.50