All-Star Team

During 2004 - 2009, either myself or Annie Sperandio or Ally Dunn or Rob Lynch was a winner of the Men's or Women's Club Championship. The four of us teammed up for the Play for Pink Tournament at Lexington GC yesterday. Its an annual 'pink' event to support a fight against breast cancer. All the girls come out with dazzling pink outfits. A few guys sported some pink as well; i'll leave opinions open to my followers on whether or not guys should wear pink. The tournament included 18-holes of golf, raffles, mulligans, pink tee gifts, dinner, and team prizes.

The tournament format is two best ball of four. A typical format in most cases, however, this tournament adds a big twist. Each team receives a pink ball (a Precept Lady which is suprisingly a good ball) that MUST be counted as one of the two best ball scores. Each player must use the pink ball at least 4 times during the round. The player who tees off with the pink ball is required to finish the hole regardless of their score. Pink ball = added pressure = added attention. I found myself looking at the pink ball differently than the white ball and turning my head multiple times a hole --- whos got the pink ball? where is it? what does it lie?

So how did we do??

We cleaned up on the Gross prize by shooting a team total of 151. The next best gross team score was 159. All four of us contributed to the victory. In fact, we had a side match between us that came down to the final hole (all-square after 17). It was Rob and Annie vs. Me and Ally. On the par-3 14th, Rob made a clutch 8-footer for par to halve the match. I'm all too familiar with Rob making putts (for those who don't know, Rob won this year's club championship). As a group, we played steady throughout the day. We didn't find ourselves in a stretch of bad holes or string of great holes. The pink ball caused us a few heartaches, but we didn't lose the ball and even made a birdie with it! My shot of the day was a lefty shot on the 2nd hole. I was pinned up against an out of bounds fence and proceeded to punch it out lefty. I didn't get back to the fairway, but I was able to give myself a third shot to the green (2nd hole is a par 5).

This was my first mixed event of my career. It was an awesome day. I'm looking forward to a repeat performance in 2010.

Thanks to Eileen Flanagan, John Flanagan, and the rest of the Social Committee for running the event. The show of support was solid and I'm sure we raised some good money for breast cancer.

I'm in full preparation mode for the Dennis Four Ball and Mass Mid-Amateur over the next two weeks. See you all soon for more inside the ropes.

K