2019 Redemption | cidercup

Redemption!

The 7th Annual Cider Cup was held on October 26th and 27th at the Cynthiana Country Club and once again, did not disappoint. Never before have players and captains so feverishly checked all available weather apps, prognosticators, Farmer’s Almanac predictions, tea leaves, Ouija boards and the always reliable Magic 8 Ball to dispel the threats from “weather terrorists” Bill Meck and Chris Bailey. As we awoke on Cider Cup Morning to dark, wet skies, some wondered if we would be even be able to play at all? As fate would have it, the rain became more of a drizzle, the winds freshened a bit to help dry things off and the Cider Cup was underway. (On a side note, one player on Sparks’ Team who suffers from Ombrophobia, also known as “fear of rain” (Google it) didn’t even bring their clubs to the course assuming we wouldn’t play. Once the Singing Sheriff collected himself, he ran home, picked up his clubs and declared himself temporarily cured of this silent but crippling phobia.)

The Captains did have to make some format adjustments due to the later start as originally 27 holes were scheduled for Saturday an 18 on Sunday. This was reversed and Saturday’s formats were 9 holes each of 2 Man Scramble and the new Chapman Alternate Shot.

For the 2nd consecutive year, there were 40 golfers participating including nine rookies. Sparks’ Team had Beau Sanders, Monty Moore, Nolan Yates and Scott Bolin playing in their first ever Cider Cup and compiling 8 wins, 3 losses and 9 ties to contribute a whopping 10 points. McCauley countered with five 1st timers. They were Brett Faulkner, Charlie Davis, Rick Boland, Simon Brazinski and Wes Hall. This five-some contributed 7 points by winning 5 matches, losing 12 and halving 4.

Both coaches had some issues fielding 20 golfers, having to deal with birth of a child, birthdays, weddings, price of the event, back problems, apathy and numerous other issues.

Team Sparks

Chris Anderson was dealing with a bad back for the entire month leading into the event and was finally ruled out just prior to the Thursday night Pairings Party and replaced by Super Sub Fred Caudill.
Shain Stephens didn’t bring his clubs to the golf course. He was always “in” but I just like reminding people that “HE DIDN’T BRING HIS CLUBS TO THE GOLF COURSE SATURDAY MORNING!!!!”

Team McCauley

Rookie Brad Fields was Saturday morning cancellation and was replaced by Hank Whalen for 3 of the 4 rounds and Dexter Dailey for one.

With those changes, it had Sparks Team HDCP at 234 and McCauley’s at 243.

Now on to the golf.

The 9 Hole Scramble session was first up and after Mike Aldridge struck the opening tee shot, the 7th Annual Cider Cup was underway. McCauley’s Team has traditionally dominated this format and Sparks was looking for his team to at least come out of the Scramble with 5 points. The opening match paired Ray Sparks/Mike Aldridge against Bob Ammerman/Rob “El Diablo” Ogden. Aldridge played for the first-time last year and went scoreless (there’s a joke in there somewhere). He and Sparks played steady and secured their team’s first point with a 3 & 2 win. Rookie Scott Bolin rode Veteran Charlie Biancke’s putting bombs to a 2 & 1 victory over Kevin Letcher and Joe Ammerman. The match of this session looked to be the John Kennedy/Beau Sanders vs Chris Miles/Rick Boland. It ended in a half point for each team, but saw several lead changes and was one of 5 matches to go to the final hole. As the 1st session came to a close, Sparks’ team had taken the early lead 5 ½ - 4 ½ .

The afternoon matches saw us play the Chapman Alternate shot format for 9 holes. This was the 1st time we’d used it. Normally we play Best Ball, but the captains were looking for more “partnership” formats. From the comments I heard, everyone enjoyed the “strategery” of it, but obviously the players on the Red Team enjoyed it a bit more as “Sparky’s Army” rallied behind the fact that they won or halved 8 of the 10 matches. Four matches were decided on the final hole. The pairing of Lenox/Bolin won the last hole to square a half with Whalen/Letcher as did Kennedy/Sanders against Boland/Harris after being down 2 with only 3 to play. The duo of Feeback/Moore lost the first two holes and found themselves down 2 after 3 only to comeback and flip the match against Dawson/McCauley and gain a point. In what could go down as one of the most EPIC collapses in Cider Cup History, the team of Henson/Caudill started off with a 3 Up lead after 3. They withstood a 2 hole swing from Davis/Ogden and found themselves 2 Up with 2 to play. The veteran duo then went on a bogey binge and lost the final two holes allowing Davis/Ogden to halve the match. Nonetheless, even with Henson/Caudill puking on their shoes, Sparks’ Team held a 12-8 Day One lead. While sleeping on the lead felt great, there were still 30 points up for grabs on Sunday and the taste of defeat was still fresh in the mouths of Sparks’ Team after holding an 11-9 lead on Day One the previous year, only to lose 26-22.

One thing that must be mentioned here was the play of Sparks/Aldridge. They were paired together for both formats on Saturday and won both matches with a 3&2 victory in the Scramble and a 5&4 in the Chapman. There were murmurings of this being the greatest pairing since Ballesteros/Olazabal. While I don’t know about that, I can tell you that with only playing 12 of the 18 possible holes, we were well rested going into Sunday.

After the competition on Saturday Night we gathered at Ashford Acres in their new barn for the annual GALA. We enjoyed great food, drinks and fellowship with our competitors, teammates, spouses and friends. We also raised some money with our silent and live auction items, but more about that later. One of the highlights of the night for me as I’m sure it was for all was the presence of a former Masters Champion.

Our Masters Champion, Monty Moore led us in a devotional on Sunday morning that reminded us just how short our time on this “rock” we call earth is and that we should approach each moment and day with passion and truly live rather than merely exist.

With the rain and wind no longer a factor, the weather turned beautiful and we readied ourselves for 18 holes of the most diabolical of all golf formats….Alternate Shot. Looking to extend or at least maintain the 4 point lead, Captain Sparks front loaded his team by sending Case/Yates out first on Hole #1 and Lenox/Bolin leading off on Hole #5. Both of those matches resulted wins for the “Olds” as you can see below, the scoreboard had a “lot of Red” with McCauley’s Team losing this session 6 ½ to 3 ½ . A few callouts.

Case/Yates were down 2 with 7 to play against R.Whalen/B.Ammerman but rallied to win 2 up.
Cox/Kennedy held a 3 up lead with 7 to play and held on against “hard chargers” Meeks/Faulkner to win 1 up.
Harris/Hall were down 5 after 7 versus Moore/Sparks but battled back to get it to 1 down and were looking to square the match were it not for a chip in on 15 allowing Moore/Sparks to win 2&1.
Henson/Caudill redeemed themselves from Saturdays debacle by “bulldozing” J.Ammerman/JD Ashbrook 6&5.
Speaking of “bulldozing”, the team of Boland/Wachter crushed Howard/Aldridge 5&3 while the pairing of Stephens/Wiglesworth (Shain brought his clubs on Sunday) ran over Davis/McCauley 4&2.

But for my money, the most puzzling match of the session, heck maybe the weekend, was Rees Feeback/Beau Sanders versus Austin Sparks/Simon Brazinski. Rees is an 8 HDCP and Beau a 10 which is perfect for Alternate shot as both should be able to “golf their ball” around in a relatively efficient manner. On the flip-side, Austin is a 1 HDCP and Simon is a 22. That should result in the 22 handicapper putting his partner in some bad spots throughout an 18 hole match. While I didn’t see the match, I am shocked that Sparks/Brazkinski pulled out a 3&2 win especially with the amount of “brown” liquid Mr. Brazinski consumed the previous night and into the morning, not to mention coming out on the losing end in a tussle with a flower pot. Feeback/Sanders started out just fine with a 2 up lead after 6, but they lost 7 and 8 and found themselves all square after 9. The momentum had shifted much like Simon’s the night before in the previously mentioned flower pot tussle and he and Austin defeated Rees and Beau 3&2.

As the Singles began, McCauley’s Team found themselves down 18 ½ to 11 ½ and needing to win 14 of the 20 points to get to the 25.5 points needed to win the Cider Cup. It would seem to be a pretty daunting task, but the 2019 Cider Cup got much tighter than expected. Frank Henson and Chase Wachter both had birthday parties to get to and I allowed them to tee off early in order to make sure they were in time for those. This seemed to trigger a free for all, chaos ensued and negatively affected the Red Team as they lost match after match and at one point, I saw the projected score at 26 ½ to 23 ½ which meant that the Blue Team only needed to flip a couple of matches. After my match was completed, I focused on the two contests that were the tightest. Those were Kelvin Winkle vs Trent Harris and Monty Moore vs Brett Faulkner. My team needed to hang on and not allow the Blue Team to flip them. Winkle and Moore both held tough against their formidable opponents and helped the Red Team win their 1st Cider Cup since 2015 and stopping the Blue Team’s 3-year streak. After the Cup was clinched, we all turned our focus the match between Charlie Biancke and Hank Whalen. Over the years, Biancke has taken numerous lessons from Whalen and they had a similar teacher/student relationship as that of Hank Haney/Tiger Woods. Whalen held a commanding 3 up lead with 3 to play, but after some stellar play by Biancke, Whalen was 1 up with 1 hole remaining. For the 15 HDCP Biancke to have a chance at halving the match against a PGA Professional was unheard of. Biancke volunteered to play Whalen after Hank replaced 16 HDCP Brad Fields after the Singles Pairings had been announced. Although Hank held on to defeat Charlie, it felt like a win to take Hank “Hany” to the last hole.

Some stats from the event:

476 holes of golf were played over the course of 2 days versus 489 holes last year.
22 of the 50 matches went to the last hole vs 23 last year.
McCauley’s Team won 7 of those
Sparks’ Team won 6
9 matches were halved.
Ray and Austin Sparks both had perfect records of 4-0-0 for the event.

The Cider Cup now stands at 4 wins for McCauley’s Team and 3 Wins for Team Sparks.

Special thanks to:

Mike Lenox and Grant Howard for their work getting the course in shape.
Joe and Emily Ammerman for opening their front porch to us on Thursday night for the “Pairings Party”.
Trent Harris for hooking up the Podcast for us.
Doug Hampton for providing us with his “nearly world famous” Buffalo Chicken Dip, Pizza and Desert. It was awesome
Amanda, Jimmy and Beth – unbelievable job by them.
Brian Kinsey for his work on the Golf Gamebook App.
Monty Moore for the devotional.
Our wives, friends and families for their support in allowing us to act like kids for a few days.
Rebecca McCauley, Emily Ammerman, Brandi Dawson and Shelly Hall for providing the teams with a fantastic breakfast and Bloody Mary bar.
To the Cider Cup Rookies. Thanks for playing. I hope the experience was all you hoped it would be and you’re looking forward to next year as much as the rest of us.
Opposing Team Captain Stephen McCauley. This event would not be what it is without you and your involvement. Your team played great as always.
Your generosity. I don’t have the final totals yet, but believe we raised a little over $4000.
Finally, I want to thank all you for playing. It is without question my favorite golf event of the year. It’s invigorating and so intense. We grind over every tee shot, pitch, chip and putt. When I came home Sunday Night I was mentally and physically exhausted, falling asleep on the couch at 7:30 only to wake up at 9:00 and hit the sack…..and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Please check the website at www.cidercup.com as I will be adding stats, info and pics in the coming days.

I’ll leave you with this closing thought.

For me, golf has always been a bit of a “spiritual” experience, meaning that I am aware of God’s presence while enjoying nature…His creation. Something Monty said in his devotion on Sunday morning struck me. He spoke about just how short our time on this side of heaven is and that we should live life with passion. Now we’ve all heard that before, but this hit me a bit different this time. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older? Maybe it’s because I have grandkids? Maybe it was because it was an old friend that I’d reconnected with that was saying it? Who knows? What I was left with was this. In the book of Revelation, Jesus tells the church of Laodicea…”15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

One of the many things that I love about the Cider Cup is that there is no “lukewarm or cold” attitudes. You guys have a passion that shows up in this event like no other I’m a part of. Just think if we (I) approached everything in life like the Cider Cup? Giving it our (my) all. My hope is that I would come home every day as exhausted as I am after the Cider Cup because I lived and loved the way God intended me to, leaving everything out there. What a difference that would make.

God Bless all of you and again, thanks for being a part of this.

I can’t wait for the jaw-jacking to come and the 2020 Cider Cup.

Ray Sparks