Mulligan Maniacs Low Net winning team, left to right, Mike Hurst, Ray Bender, Steve Shaver; not pictured: Ken Whitney
Closest to Pin and Longest Putt winners, left to right, Mike Mealer, Tim Pisarski, and Steve Roseman
Erv Stein
On June 20, 64 PebbleCreek Men’s Nine-Hole Golf Association (PCM9GA) golfers teed off at 7:30 a.m., early enough to thwart the searing summer heat, in a quite novel to say the least, a so named “Mulligan Maniacs” format that allowed all golfers depending upon their prevailing handicaps to benefit from one to a whopping three Mulligans for their nine holes of play. The term “Mulligan,” loosely meaning a “do over”, is a term sometimes used in other than golf. It apparently originated in the 1920s due to David Mulligan, a then notable North American/Canadian Hotel Tycoon, and a noted golfer at the St. Lambert Country Club in Montreal, Canada. Several versions have been advanced of Dave Mulligan’s impulsive do-over initial drives, but story has it that on a precarious drive to the club one morning, Dave Mulligan survived a near miss serious vehicle accident and being still very agitated over his first drive, wound up taking several drives and supposedly the term “Mulligan” related to repeated golf shots originated then, and still prevails more than 100 years later.
Again, each team member benefited from one to three Mulligans resulting in quite incredibly low net scores, still calculated on each golfer’s handicap. One big decision for each golfer and, for that matter, foursomes, was to timely use an available Mulligan since three net golfer scores were used to derive the particular team score. Therefore, if one team member was already having a difficult hole, it would be a waste to use their “Mulligan” for that hole.
In any event, this turned out to be an incredibly amusing tournament format. Congratulations to the winning net score foursome of Mike Hurst, Ray Bender, Steve Shaver, and Ken Whitney. Likewise, kudos to the “Closest to Pin” and “Longest Drive” winners: Tim Pisarski, Mike Mealer, and Steve Roseman. The following is a list of winners and likewise a fairly large number of golfers who greatly benefited by the rare sanctioned Mulligans and recorded Birdies.
Low Net Winners
1st Place: Net 9 Mike Hurst, Ray Bender, Steve Shaver, Ken Whitney
2nd Place: Net 102 Peter Diliberti, Richard Spampinato, Bill Prater, Stu Taylor
3rd Place: Net 103 Bill Hill, Frank Chop, Sam Ellis, Erv Stein
Closest to Pin/ Longest Putt Winners
Hole 4 CTP: Tim Pisarski
Hole 8 CTP: Steve Roseman
Hole 9 LP: Mike Mealer
Birdies: Steve Roseman, Ken Whitney, Mike Adkins, Bob Newell, Tom LeChaix, Bill Davis, Scott Derby, Mike Mealer, Fred Schmidt, Jim Tacket
Following the tournament, we all gathered at the Chianti Room for a Continental Breakfast with all winners announced and congratulated, and photos were taken. Kudos are in order for Ray Clements and his extraordinary pairing committee members for hosting such an excellent event as well as the always helpful PebbleCreek Pro Shop staff. Through the summer and fall season equally exciting events include the July 4 “Red–White–Blue” Tournament, the July 18 “Ryder Cup event, the “Goofy Golf Scramble” on Aug. 8, followed by the “Beat the Pros” event on Sept. 26 and the three off course events at Verrado, Falcon Dunes, and the “Top Golf Mixer.”
Our PCM9GA group, founded way back in 2005, now has approximately 383 members. We encourage prospective PCM9GA members in our fun-loving, low-key group of golfers to contact our membership chairman, Tim Munson, at 503-460-7618.