Hacker Page

Results for August 18, 2023

We certainly have had quite the variety of weather this season. Be it rain, heat and humidity, wind, or some combination of the above, we’ve seen it all. Just one more week to dodge the bad stuff and hopefully stay on schedule. Last night was the wind, which never really seemed to be blowing in a helpful fashion. It did however keep the humidity down, so, yay!

Handicap changes were fairly even this week, with 5 going up, 5 going down, and 6 staying the same.  Jim, as predicted, yours did come down 1 after replacing that 7 with last night’s 5.

The return to the custom scorecards did make for a smoother moneyball drawing, aided by the 1-ball draw by Jim, awarding the prize to Sue for her 1st hole bogey, net eagle!  Nice hole Sue!

Now for the matches.

Three matches ended in 6-3 decisions. Starting with the featured match (battle of 7th and 8th place) of Dave vs Bette, this match started out all square as they split the first two holes. Dave then went on to either win or tie holes 12-17 allowing just one full point to Bette at the final hole. Another nice round for Scoop, shooting his handicap to remain in 7th place while Bette dropped into 9th.

Next up, despite shooting 5 strokes higher than her previous week’s score, Gloria was still able to prevail over Sue. Sue did come out firing with that bogey at the first to take the early 1-up lead. Gloria quickly got the match back to all square at the 2nd and allowed Sue only 4 halved holes to close out the match. Nice round ladies!

In the “Arch-rival” matchup between Tom and Andy, it was Andy taking the early 1-up lead. For the next four holes, he would get to 2-up two times, only to have Tommy cut back into the lead, dropping it back to 1-up 2 times. With wins at the 15th and 16th, the lead was 3-up, where it would remain as they split the final 2 holes to end the contentious round 😊  Nice round Tommy!

Jim and Brian had the only 5 ½ -3 ½ match. Coming out of the gate, they split the first two holes before Jim stepped up his game with par and birdie at the 12th and 13th, to go 2-up, where it remained while they split the next two holes. Jim clinched the win with a full point at the 16th, but Brian fought back with a birdie of his own to lower Jim’s lead to 2-up. A 5th and final tied hole at the end held Jim to the 2-up win. I understand Brian’s birdie at the 17th was, shall we say, somewhat fortunate? Fortunate that his tee shot didn’t hit Tim who was minding his own business over on the 18th tee, and extremely fortunate that his next shot somehow not only found its way onto the green, but actually went in the hole for a 2!  If it was me, I think I would rather save that kind of luck for the lottery 😊 Nice Job Brian!

The other featured match between Mark and Marty was one of three matches to go 5-4. Here, despite shooting a bit over his handicap, it was Mark taking the win over the “rusty” Marty. The rust wasn’t too bad, as Marty had a nice chip-in for birdie at the difficult 3rd hole to cut into Mark’s early 2-up lead. He followed this up with a par at the “railroad” hole, to level the match at 2-2. With the match all square after the 16th, a par-bogey finish was just enough against bogey-bogey for Mark to take the win.  Well fought gents!

Mark Roschinsky and Dan Palmerino had a rematch of their week #4 round which had seen Mark win 5-4.  Dan turned the tables in this nearly heads-up round, taking the 5-4 victory. The match was all square as they came to the final hole, where a par for Dan finished off this close match.

Joe faced off this week against veteran Hacker Bob in a back-and forth match that had both players leading at 2 different times, and the match squared up 4 times, including going into the final hole. A par for Joe clinched this 5-4 win.  Another tight one!  Well done!

Thanks to Joe and Mark for filling in this week!

Last, but not least, we have Tim and Pete battling to a draw.  Pete came out firing to take the first hole, but Tim quickly rallied to take the next 2 to go 1 up.  A bomb of a putt for par by Pete at the difficult railroad hole brought the match back to all square. Tim got it back to 2-up at the 16th, but Pete finished strong to win the last 2 holes to knot the match at the end.  Well done, Pete!

Mark is now just 1 round away from another full season with no others.  No pressure 😊

League Standings

While there were no changes on the top 6 in the league standings, Andy continued to extend his lead, and it appears that only Dan Fusco can catch him.  He’ll need a big night against Bette next week in order to do so.  Check out the “WhoCanDoIt” link to the left to see what the numerical possibilities are for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place positions.

Hacker Cup

Brian retains the lead here, followed by Andy making a big move up the leaderboard from 8th into 2nd place. Jim took over 3rd place moving up from 7th, as Dan Palmerino, Dave and Tom each fell 2 positions from the previous 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place spots. Meanwhile Bette dropped out of the top 5 into 8th.  It all comes down to the final week of the playoffs now.  With Brian out for the last week, his point total will not change, giving anyone in positions 2-5 a chance to pass him. Check out the “WhoCanDoIt_HCUP” link to the left to see the possibilities.

As a reminder of how the play-off scoring works. Each player starts with a set number of points, depending on their seed location.  Each week, points are scored and accumulated exactly the same as they are during the regular season. The lowest of the 4-weeks of points will be thrown out. The player with the highest number of points using their seed points and the best 3 scores from the playoff weeks, will win the Hacker Cup, and have their name engraved thereon for perpetuity (or, until we run out of room for names 😊).

The Numbers:

Low Gross

39

Andy

41

Jim

43

Mark Rusnak

 

Low Net

34

Andy

35

Jim

36

Dave, Brian, Mark Roschinsky

 

NEW for 2023

Knockout Champion

While he didn’t have a 9-point night, Dave did take top points here to cut a bit more into Dan Fusco’s lead, as well as earning the honor of being next week’s glove-carrier!  Well done, Dave!

 

Eagles and Birdies

The birds were chirping AGAIN this night, as 4 of them blew in on the wind.

#12 – Marty, Mark Roschinsky

#13 – Jim

#17 – Brian

Closest-to-the-pin (aka Dan Fusco retirement fund)


With Dan Fusco not playing, a CTP win became a possibility for the rest of us. Mark stepped up to take his 2nd prize of the season. Well done, Mark!

Week #

Player

Hole #

Prize $

Distance

1

Matt

14

$10

~8’

2

Dan P

3

$10

~15’

3

N/A

17

$10

N/A

4

Mark

6

$15

17’ 9 ½”

5

N/A

14

$10

N/A

6

Dan F

3

$15

13’ 3”

7

Dan F

17

$10

9’ 4”

MID

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

8

N/A 

6 

$10

 N/A

9

Dan F 

14 

$15

3’ 0” 

10

Jim 

3 

$10

3’ 0”

11

 N/A

17 

$10

 N/A

12

Jim

6

$15

24’ 9” 

13

Dan F 

3 

$10

6’ 1” 

14

 Mark Rusnak

14 

$10

20’ 4” 

15

 

6

$10

 

Banquet Night

 

17 

$10