2014 Sherrill Cup

June 4 - The annual Sherrill Cup at Essex County Club lived up to its usual greatness - excellent golf course conditions, good food all day long, high level but friendly competition, and great tournament staff.  A couple of different highlights this year included a new tee box on the 16th hole (perched about 50 feet high and I'd say added 30 yards to the hole), less fescue!, my best club caddy yet in S. McLean (read every putt well), and my morning and afternoon partner was S. Keegan (recent years have been with R.Lynch).  We played with Concord CC throughout the day; good group of guys that manage to play well while enjoying multiple beverages!  I couldn't do that for sure.  Hope to set up a Concord-Lex Battle someday in the near future.

Team LGC - myself, S. Keegan, R. Lynch, and S. Geldart couldn't quite break through in the afternoon; always difficult to stay steady through 18 holes alternate shot.   I generally find we have one, bad 4 hole stretch, that loses us 4 or 5 shots.  We finished T6 at 466.  The winning team of Old Sandwich won by 6 shots.  The weather forecast was very bleak coming into the day, with heavy rain expected.  Fortunately, there was only minor rain before 9am and than a few showers in the afternoon round that were gone in less than 10 minutes.  During that 10 mins of heavy rain, Steve and I made a disappointing 7 on the second hole; consecutive chips that rolled back to our feet above the greenside bunker.  I think the 2nd green is one of the hardest on the course given it falls off on both the back and front.

In my morning round, my putter remained pretty hot.  I had one three putt and 30 putts overall.  I made long putts (over 10 feet) on 18, 3, 5, and 8.  My most adventurous hole was 18.  I hit a driver, right, into the fescue.  I had a decent lie, but it was downhill and ball above my feet.  I foolishly (in hindsight) slashed a PW and the club was grabbed shooting the ball left and low.  It cleared the front stream (about 25 yards shot of green) by inches.  I hit a poor chip to 30 feet above the pin and drained the putt for par!  I got away with par, but double would have easily been in play 8 out of 10 times with that strategy.  It was my 'no reason to complain for the rest of the round' shot of the day.

My Dad walked the morning 18 with us.  His first time seeing the entire Essex course!  Thanks Dad!