November 2020

Dear Senior Golf League Members,

 

November 2nd was our last official league day. It certainly has been a golf season to remember! Or to forget! In either case we want to thank you for cooperating and caring about each other by using masks, distancing, etc. and especially for your politeness and grace when things were confusing.

 

Banquet

Unfortunately this season will not conclude with the traditional banquet. Just too many people and too few venues that make sense along with unpredictable cold weather.  So this letter and some links to photos we took will have to suffice for 2020. We have some options we are exploring for next year with new activities. There will be more information on those in the months to come.

 

Retirement Thank Yous

This year three great leaders of our League decided to retire from the committee.  Those leaders are John Demoy, Youngjo Sul and, at the end of this season, Peter Yee.  Like Jim Kirk, they have become Emeritus members of the committee; that is, the current committee will continue to draw on their long experience and to seek their guidance from time to time. They were treated to a lunch a few weeks ago and each was given an exceptional bottle of wine to acknowledge their exceptional leadership. We expect to honor them in person at the next League Banquet. But don’t wait! When you see them on the links, please thank them for having nurtured this merry group of golfers for so many years.

 

More Thank Yous

A special thanks is due to our intrepid committee member, Andy Rittenburg. Andy responded quickly to the changing tee time environment we faced in the Spring. He quickly invented the methods for e-mails and formats that all of us now use to book ahead. And he has managed it by himself this entire season. Yes, those rapid responses came from him always monitoring the requests. He then organized them so both golfers and course staff were kept informed about how many were playing and their start times. We are interested in getting him some backup (2 or 3 people) for next season. If you’d like to help us spread this work a bit, please tell a committee member or email The Senior Golf League management e-mail address saying you would like to volunteer.

Also a thank you to the Pine Meadows course staff for keeping the course in excellent shape in spite of:  a soaking cold spring, summer and fall droughts, and what we heard was a big increase in usage.

 

New Members

We hope you have had a chance to play with some of these new faces. To remind you, they are: Jim Colantropo, Jay Flynn, Don Healy, Shawn Marcel, Sophia and Leon Navickas and Dan Wiseman.

 

Golf Highlights and Handicapping

And now a little trip down memory lane about the great wins and special accomplishments by our league members this season.

 

As of mid-October, we had over 44 play dates this year with an average of 23 rounds each date. John Demoy and Ken Han led the group by playing 42 of those play dates.  Dan Wiseman topped the list of golfers who joined the league this year with 30 rounds.  

Low net honors for the year goes to Peter Yee who had a net 28 on June 18th.  Runner-up was Bill Condon with a net 29 on July 2nd.  Ken Fitzpatrick, Steven Levy, John Demoy, Roy Sodano, Arthur Daltas, and Stephen Russo all recorded net 30s.   

Low Gross was a tie between Ric Magro (September 10th) and Eric Baatz (September 3rd), who each shot 36.  John Dwyer, Mike Mickelsen, John Demoy, Jim Chefalo, Stephen Russo, Eric Baatz, and Rick Magro each shot a 37.  The most sub-40 rounds were turned in by Rick Magro and Eric Baatz who each had eight.   

We had three eagles this year.  Eric Baatz had a hole-in-one on hole #4.  Bill Sciarretta had a deuce on hole #5, and Jim Colantropo had a two on hole #3.  

There were a total of 113 birdies, with 32 of them coming on hole #9.  We don’t have a count of the number of lost balls on that hole, but we suspect that it was significantly higher.   Despite the water, #9 was the third easiest hole for our group, with an average score of 1.10 over par.  Of course, our tees were always at the bottom of the hill….  The easiest hole (by scoring average) was #3 at just 0.98 over par, closely followed by #7 at 1.00 over par.  It is no surprise that #2 was hardest at 1.81 over par, followed by #5 at 1.73 and #1 at 1.49.           

Also a thank you to Eric Baatz, who has agreed to be a backup for the handicapping responsibilities going forward.

 

Pictures

Yes we caught you in the act of golfing and having fun with fellow members. Sorry if we didn’t capture everyone, but we were trying to golf too! Click this link to see all the happy people:  https://lexingtongolfers2018banquet.shutterfly.com/

 

Excursion Golf Outings & Indoors

A bunch of us tried other challenging courses to see how much worse our scores can be and to see if we can keep our sense of humor. And yes there were BIG numbers but the beer after the round helped the humor to return. We played: Tewksbury, Patriot, Sandy Burr, Stow Acres South, Meadow at Peabody, Campbell’s Scottish Highlands, Black Swan, George Wright, Overlook, Mt. Hood, Butter Brook and Red Tail. There are 26 people on the email invite list and usually we have 8 golfers for each excursion. Let a committee member know if you want to be added to that email list.

And thanks to Rick Atkins, who has agreed to share responsibilities for planning and conducting some of the excursions in the future.

In past winters, we’ve also had a small group of golfers who like to play indoor golf on simulators at Big Sticks in Burlington. All our real clubs are used, and we play famous courses around the world. However no indoor excursions are planned yet. We need to assess the situation as winter health conditions develop and as facilities adjust.

 

Feedback

Finally, if you have comments and feedback about last year and/or ideas for next year please talk to any committee member or email us at The Senior Golf League management e-mail address. For example, we think the tee time process has worked so well that we should probably keep it even when the virus subsides? And adjust the mix of formats like blind match, scrambles, individual net, etc. for the tournaments? We plan to monitor this email traffic only from time-to-time and then you’ll start hearing from us regularly in early Spring.

We wish you a very happy and safe holidays and winter season. We’ll see you on the course next year! Watch your email for announcements.

 

For The Senior Golf League Committee,

Arthur Daltas

 

Arthur Daltas, Town-Course/Excursions/Events

Mike Mickelsen, Handicapping/Secretary/Rules

Andy Rittenburg, Pairings

John Demoy, Emeritus

Jim Kirk, Emeritus

Youngjo Sul, Emeritus

Peter Yee, Emeritus