Good Morning Nate,

FROM THE GM - Vicki Richardello

Today is National “Thank a Golf Course Superintendent Day”.  No matter what course you belong to, I know your Super would appreciate a wave, a hello or a Thank You!   They do great work and help us enjoy the game we love! THANK YOU BARTY AND YOUR GREAT STAFF, #ThankASuper, #ThankAGreenkeeper, #IntheBerkshires

“WOW”beeka Weekend, October 3 & 4, starts in 8 days!!  Great chance to grab a partner and play a great course for a great price!!  Entries will not be accepted after this Thursday, Oct. 1, at 5 PM.  Entry form here.

Now is the time to send in your application for our annual Fall Mixed Scotch Tournament to be played Sunday, October 18.  Regrettably, this tournament will be limited to the first 25 paid teams. Click here for the entry form.

Our staff is planning a trip to check out Top Tracer Golf at Chris Coty’s Golf Shop in Portland, CT next Tuesday.  We are considering enhancing our Big Mountain Driving Range with the same device you watch on TV every weekend.  It is a considerable investment, but the future looks promising and bright for this great game.  Ten million additional people teed it up in 2020 than did in 2019!  

If you love golf and are considering joining a course, or perhaps, changing courses, consider Waubeeka...a golfing experience that transcends the ordinary!  Compare our rates.  We offer a first class, 18 hole championship course.  Join Waubeeka NOW!  Effective on Oct 1, just 6 days from today, we will begin charging a $2,000 initiation fee to everyone joining Waubeeka in the future.  This fee will be used for a  maintenance budget, for new equipment to actually improve the conditions on the golf course and make needed larger repairs as they come such as a sprinkler system upgrade.  As Jack Nicklaus said, ‘even a gem needs polish’.  Act now, your membership is an investment in your happiness.  The 2021 Membership rates are here, all applications received in the next 6 days with a deposit will have invested in future happiness!  Golfers Live 5 years longer!

Have you checked out our YouTube channel lately?  Visit our channel here!

Kudos to our staff on Saturday who helped make the Women’s Fall Classic such a success.   In spite of a frost delay, we were able to finish the rounds before dark and everyone seemed to enjoy the day.  Sunny skies arrived and it was certainly a typical fall day.  Our superintendent, Brian Bartlett and his crew got the course in wonderful condition in the short time they had, and Erik Tiele, our pro and the cart barn employees knew exactly what to do by proceeding to Plan B.  Our kitchen staff also stepped up to the plate and had lunches ready at the turn for those who wanted to eat before the completion of their round. Thanks to the Waubeeka members who lended a hand to make the tournament a success.

Our tee gift, a fleece gaiter and headband, certainly was a hit!  Thanks to Keith Bona from Berkshire Emporium and Antiques for getting them to us on time.  He is located on Main Street in North Adams, and I highly recommend him.  He offered us a fair price and was a pleasure to do business with.  I wish I had ordered more for the pro shop….may have to do that now that the weather is turning colder.

Probably no one at the Fall Classic had a more memorable round than Sue Kahler whose team finished first gross.  But, I know, that is not what made the day so special for her.  Last year, in this same tournament, Sue played with her very close friend and golfing partner, Suzy Mansfield.  Suzy had been diagnosed with cancer and played with a patch over her eye last year, but that didn’t stop her from making a hole-in-one on Hole #16.  Suzy passed a couple of months ago and we certainly all miss her, but no one, I’m sure, misses her more than Sue Kahler.  Sue told me when she got to the 16th hole on Saturday, she looked up to the heavens and thought of her good friend.  It’s not surprising that Sue hit a shot 6 inches from the hole. It didn’t hold up for the skin, as Carol Preusser had a hole-in-one on that same hole. But I’m absolutely sure that Suzy answered the call and was smiling as Sue hit her shot.  

I was fortunate to have Marion Hyde on my team this year.  If you don’t know who Marion is, you haven’t been involved in the MA/NY/CT golf circuit. Marion is 88 years young, and I have to admit, beat me gross on Saturday.   She is truly amazing….I was told she shot her age, 88,  last week at Fairview Farm.  My first thought was it had to be an executive course….heck, no…. And then, she was so happy that when she returned a few days later, she shot 83! I think we all want to grow up to be Marion Hyde!

Which brings me to this thought…..I, along with everyone else who played this year, probably don’t remember who won last year.  Does it matter?  We all have special memories that mean so much more… Aren’t we lucky to have such good friends to play this wonderful sport with?  We are fortunate!

Winners of this year’s Classic can be found here.

The Miami Heat, Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro, 2 years out of high school, took a commanding 3 games to 1 lead over the Boston Celtics last night in front of no fans in the Florida bubble.  One more victory this Friday night in Lake Buena Vista, FL and the Heat will be onto the NBA Championship Series!

Congratulations to young guns Nicholas Cummings & Dillon Brown as well as Matt Parziale and Waubeeka friend Herbie Aikens as they qualified for the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the beautiful Indian Pond Club in Kingston, MA.  They will be headed to Chambers Bay in Washington State on May 22 - 26, 2021.  

FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT - Brian Bartlett

Fall is a great time to transplant evergreens, shrubs and trees. Read this article for steps on moving your beautiful plants.  We have planted about 40 mums around the golf course this week.  They will be spectacular next October!

FROM THE KITCHEN - 

Saturday nite special.  PRIME RIB - Prix Fixe menu,  includes salad, rolls & butter, vegetable medley, baked potato, coffee and dessert ~$40.  We will continue serving until we run out of this popular offering! Reservations required for Saturday or Sunday!

SOUP!  Coming soon, we will have a soup and sandwich special daily.  

Thanksgiving and Christmas parties - we will accept reservations for parties of no larger than 25.  Lunch or Dinner.   See our menu here.  Or….let us prepare a meal of your choosing.  Just call the Tavern on 7 at 413-458-6000.  Let’s pick a date and a menu!
 

FROM THE PRO - Erik Tiele

My deepest sympathy to the family of good friend and consummate professional Doug Evans. Doug was the NENY PGA Assistant Director and Director of Tournaments.  Doug was the epitome of a true golf pro and he will be greatly missed.  

What a battle we had for the seniors!  And one extra hole was needed to proclaim Al Stalker the Champion. The first round leader backed his opening 75 with a second round 76 but his longtime friend and golfing partner, Ken Hodgdon who opened with a 76 backed that up with a closing 75. Stalker won on the first playoff hole. Hodgdon, however, did claim the first Net portion.
     
 GROSS                                               NET
 
 1st        Al Stalker      75-76 - 151       1st   Ken Hodgdon   68-68 - 136
 2nd      Jim Crews                               2nd  Jake Jowett
 3rd tie  Russ Gilman                           3rd   Jim Corkins
             Ron Goss                                4th   Al Goldstein

This week's Sunday Sweeps was pick your partner from the final round of the U.S. Open. First Gross went to Jack Pieraccini-Dechambeau, second to Dan Bourdon-Dechambeau and third Jim Crews-Schauffele. The Net bracket played out like this, first to Jim Corkins-Dechambeau, second to Denny Lawson- D. Johnson and third developed in a tie between Al Field- J. Thomas and Curtis Gazaille- L. Oosthuizen

Despite technically starting a new season on the PGA Tour our Fantasy Golf pool still has a few weeks left and 1st place is still up for grabs. Andy Vidal, Ken Sann and Ron Goss are slugging it out and Chuck Lewitt is silently sneaking up on them.  

Play with the Pro. I played last Thursday with Linda Nichols and  Donna Peters. Donna’s husband was supposed to join us but was unable to. We only played nine holes and had a great time!! This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to play with new members Tom Reap and Drew Pearce. We were joined by Doug Gilbert and had a perfect day on the course. 

I would like to thank all of the members that took part in the Play with the Pro Day for the last 6 weeks. I had a great time playing with you all and learning a lot about your lives outside of the course!  I look forward to doing this again next year already! 

Watch this short lesson on YouTube with me in how to start your golf swing!

Hats off to fellow PGA Professional Thomas Sennett,  assistant at CCOP.  Thomas made the journey to NYS and finished at one under par to earn the second alternate spot in the National Car Rental Assistants Championship!  Thomas could always move the ball, especially when he was the assistant pro at Taconic GC under head pro Josh Hillman.

Another Hole-in-One occurred on Tuesday!!  Pete Landry used a pitching wedge on the first hole which was playing at 105 yards!!! His witnesses were Jerry Desmaris, Ed Flaherty and Mike Sanders. If you all keep making “Aces” on the first hole we may have a hard time returning it to a par 4!!












Another Hole-in-One occurred on Wednesday on the same shortened first hole.  Vickie Dunson visited us from Troy, NY with Thomas Bass and recorded her first ever ace using ‘a pink Bermuda ball’!  It’s Vickie’s first ever (been playing 12 years) and was she surprised to find out the local rule at Waubeeka, everybody had to buy her a drink!!

Rules Question of the Week

In stroke play, a player thinks his or her tee shot has come to rest in a yellow penalty area but it is neither known nor virtually certain that the ball is in the area. The player drops another ball immediately behind the area under the penalty area relief Rule (17.1d) and plays it; he or she then finds the original ball in the area. Which is correct? 

A. The original ball was out of play when he or she played the ball behind the area.

B. The original ball is the ball in play and he or she must continue with the original ball.

C. The player is disqualified.

Answer

Correct answer A

The original ball was out of play when he or she played the ball behind the area.

ExplanationRule 17.1c; Rule 18.1; Rule 18.2b

Dick Syriac (laryoflenox) writes:

Any Berkshire County high school baseball fan worth their salt certainly remembers the pitching staff assembled at Wahconah in the early 70's.  We can start with Jeff Reardon and toss in Jerry Erb, Chris Kirby and Brian O'Keefe. Good luck figuring out a way to get your team a win against that staff.  Tom McGrath of Waubeeka and hall of fame coach at Drury has said, "That was the best pitching staff I've ever seen at the high school level.”  Erb once had 24 punch outs in a high school game while Reardon recorded 21 for a nine inning game vs St. Joe North Adams.

Reardon, Erb and Kirby went to D-1 UMASS and then on to the professional level. O'Keefe pitched for Holy Cross.  Reardon fared the best with 367 saves for many teams at the MLB level and was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Most of the Warriors' fielders could get an early start on their homework because they didn't get much action in the field and would often chat with the base umpire to keep him awake.  Not so for catcher Fred Goerlach for he had to remember to hold his mitt (with sponge) in the strike zone and after 9 pitches or so roll the ball back to the mound and proceed to the Wahconah dugout.

Fred, who  developed into a fine amateur golfer, recently won his second Brown Jug at the  2020 event at Wahconah CC.  Besides winning many tournaments during his career, he is also a very patient man because his recent win in "The Jug" came 46 years after his initial win in 1974.  Fred has also served as a volunteer coach for the  MCLA golf program and is the man to see, and consult, if you are looking to tweak your golf clubs.  He does shaft and degree work for many of the Berkshire County and Western Mass golf professionals and amateurs.  Goerlach has run free junior clinics and  has assisted PGA golf pro Chris Polidoro as the co-director of the ladies league at Cranwell Golf Resort.  So he traded in his "tools of ignorance" for a solid golf game and amateur career and we are glad he did.  He played many rounds of golf with our good friend Jeff Polucci and was sad to hear of his passing.

He is a very good friend of Erik Tiele and, for sure, one of the good guys.
                                                    

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Nice to see that Mr. Deep is all over the wrongfully discarded cigarette butt issue on the property.  Being the business man that he is and always looking for an opportunity to add to the coffers he should have snapped a shot of the brand of the butt and picked up some advertising revenue.
When can you shoot a 77 on the PGA tour and make the cut? Rickie Fowler did just that at Winged Foot and lived to play the weekend.  Twice during the last two years, a group from Cranwell, your scribe included, were all set to play that venue and foul weather intervened. Maybe next year.

If any members of Waubeeka or readers of this publication recall batting against that Wahconah juggernaut of the 70's please share the experience. Additional comments from Coach McGrath are also welcome.  If you remember playing for St. Joe and you struck out in all your at bats that day, we would like to hear from you also. It is not easy going for the golden sombrero in any game.

I remember getting the steal sign while on first base against Holyoke HS and future major league catcher Fran Healy. He got me by a "few" steps and never got out of his crouch to do it. It was a long perp walk back to the dugout before about 300 fans and many MLB scouts at Van Horn Park.

PGA Tour

What can 40 pounds of muscle and all your clubs the same length add to your golf game?  Science professor Bryson DeChambeau’s answer, The 120th U.S. Open!!   Winged Foot, site of the season’s first major, saw only DeChambeau, out of the 60 that tried, able to break par!!  Mathew Wolff, in his first ever U.S. Open came in second, 6 shots in back of the winner.  Low Am honors went to John Pak, the 21 year old phenom from New Jersey and FSU!  The next U.S. Open, my favorite course - Torrey Pines, where our Superintendent, Brian, parred many of the holes just a couple of years ago!! Today, starts the Corales Puntacana Championship from the Dominican Republic.  

LPGA Tour

Georgia Hall shot 12 under par but needed two extra playoff holes to defeat Ashleigh Buhai at the shortened Cambia Portland Classic in Oregon.  Thursday’s round was cancelled due to the fires in the Pacific Northwest that made the air most difficult to breathe.  Today, starts the BMW Ladies Championship in Busan, South Korea.

DEEP Thoughts 

Happy for Bryson DeChambeau, sure, he hits it far and has a great short game.  He certainly is an influencer for all golfers, but he has to speed it up!!  The last thing that golf needs is someone we all look up to taking 6 hours to play a round of golf.  If this sport is to continue its high profile and welcoming inclusiveness, more players coming back to golf, more rounds being played, the message must be, hit when ready, be ready to hit when it's your turn and finish your round in 4 hours or less!  The game will be more enjoyable for all of us.  Keep up with the group in front of you, not ahead of the group behind you!