KD, James, Russ
Gosh darn this post is quite far after the fact, but I feel like I owe it to my teammates to write a little piece on what we did. When I say teammates, I don’t mean GW teammates however, I’m talking about the Olympic Club Junior Team.
We play in the Bay Cities League, which runs from June until August and consists of about 30 private clubs around the Bay Area who each form a team of players 21 and under. Most of the clubs who make it to the 8-team playoffs do so by offering college players free memberships for the summer and in return ask them to play on the team (our team has no such program in place, all of our players have been full members for many years). I think we generally play with a chip on our shoulders when it comes to this idea, because we’re all home grown.
We went undefeated in six regular season contests, notably beating our rivals Lake Merced and Stanford at their courses. This gave us the two seed in the playoffs, having lost the tie for the top spot with Saratoga CC because they won more points than us in their matches. It seemed irrelevant though, because we knew the next time we would play them if we kept winning would be the Championship Match, which is played as a 36 hole event, one round on each team’s course. Before I get into the playoff matches though, I’d like to introduce each of my awesome teammates (in order of the line-up)
Will Brueckner
This kid’s got game (and some really big ears). He’s only 15 and kicking my ass all over the golf course. Even so, it’s such a pleasure playing with him each week, especially when we post best ball scores like 61 and 63…
Parker Ramsey
Another sweetheart, who plays for San Jose State. He’s a little crazy, but hey who isn’t? Oh and his swing is pure.
Daniel Connolly
Another young-un with too much talent. Trust me, it’s rough to get a beat down from someone six inches shorter and five years younger than you. Also, if Parker’s swing is pure, then Daniel’s is PURE.
Stephanie Hsieh
Doubles as superstar at Brown University. Laughs a little too loud, but her birdies make up for it.
Matt Baumann
One of the “Big Three”, he considers himself most like James Harden, but with the yips. As the oldest guy on the team, I don’t know a person who didn’t look up to him.
Max Plank
Also known as Woody, he keeps putting up lower and lower numbers as the months go by. I’m always patiently waiting to get a text that says “Committed to Stanford!”
Trevor Murphy
Another one of the “Big Three”, most likely Russell Westbrook. One of the most ridiculous people I’ve ever met (see: club throwing, packing bacon in his golf bag for when he buys hamburgers), but also one of my favorite people.
Greg Mroz
I don’t even know what to say about him that hasn’t already been said. Sure knows how to laugh at himself though.
Cian Mahoney
A sleeper pick all year for Most Valuable Player. He’s not even in high school yet he holds his own with all of us.
So now that I’ve been sappy about all these kids I grew up with, I can get back to the playoffs.
Oh wait I have to say something about Willie too! Willie Toney is the Assistant Head Golf Professional at Olympic, and our adviser on all things life and golf related. So shout out to him, the King of Trash Talk. This is him. He’s a little blurry.
We played San Jose CC in the first round with a distinct home field advantage. I ended up being one of only two people who lost some points in the match, the final score being 32.5 Olympic – 3.5 San Jose. Wait, let’s backtrack a bit to why I lost those points. It was a funny story, actually.
The matches we play are in match play format, and I was one down going into the ninth hole, so I needed to win the hole to halve the first nine. I hit my shot on the green in regulation and reached for my putter when I got to the green, but found it wasn’t there. I then realized that after I hit my difficult sand shot to tap in range, I picked up my ball because my opponent conceded the par putt. Beaming with confidence, I stormed off to the next tee to prepare, but forgot I had brought my putter to the bunker. Flash forward to the ninth green, I had to putt with a wedge, taking three tries to finish the hole for a bogey and a tie, meaning I lost the front. At the end of the match, I also realized I had lost one down overall, so my stupid mistake cost me my entire match. Thank goodness I have solid teammates.
Our semifinal match against Santa Rosa, played at our course, was a breeze, no offense to our competitors. We won 27-9, and quickly set our sights on taking down Saratoga.
We had a bone and a half to pick with them after we lost to them in the first round of the playoffs last year. That match was held at Saratoga, a tricked-up, mini sized course. It is actually only nine holes, but we play twice to make up an 18 hole match. Local knowledge is everything there, and since only three of us had played a practice round, we had no chance of moving on. We knew what we were dealing with in the final this year, however, so a win was much more probable than just possible.
We took the first half of the match, played at our course, 22-14, led by a great round from Will. Only 14.5 points were needed to lock up the trophy at the end of day two, but no lead is big enough when traveling to Saratoga.
As much as I wish things could have been friendlier and easy-going for the Championship, it was apparent early on that the opposing team had no interest in such an idea. After numerous thrown/slammed clubs and words screamed that will not be shown on this blog, their poor sportsmanship came to a head on the sixth hole. I was watching one of my competitors in my group tee off, and he hit an awful snap hook. Instead of handling it well, he let the club fly out of his hands in disgust, and it hit me directly in the face from 10 feet away. Luckily I was no worse for the wear, but needless to say I didn’t appreciate the action. Though it was accidental, I have never seen worse behavior in a competition. It was shameful and a disgrace to everyone involved. Hitting a player with a club should have necessitated this player’s expulsion from his team and club.
The rest of the match for me went poorly; I put up zero points in the match. As disappointing as it was to hurt the team, I knew they could clinch without me. Little did I know it would be so close. The championship ended up coming down to the last match of Stephanie and Cian, with Cian playing his first match in the playoffs. He rose to the occasion and took all the points in his match. Stephanie did as well, securing the victory with a final score of 39-34.
I couldn’t be prouder of all of these people. We put in an awesome effort all year and vindicated our loss to Saratoga last year. We definitely felt like the Thunder beating the Heat in the NBA Finals (sadly it didn’t actually happen that way…).
If you actually read all the way to here, you must be pretty bored, so thanks for sticking around. Have a billion more papers/articles to write now that I’m done with this. Okay, that’s all. Muffins.
Jack Persons 