Despite a rain out last month, there is much about which to talk! Along with April comes Daylight Savings Time, which means the monthly 9-hole tournament (look for more on this in an article from Cairo) and the putting tournament (look for more on this from Rich Dennison…I’ve heard you’ll see him standing, er make that sitting guard on the putting green before the meeting, possibly with a beverage to keep him company!).

April is also the month of the Quad Club. Rec Park is hosting this event and Cairo will be our contact. Saturday Team Play continues its winning ways, with a victory today over Indian Hills. Keeping with the “Hills” motif, they will next face arguably the toughest opponent there is, in Industry Hills. The Industry Hills complex was recently purchased by a new management group, and I predict that those who go there will be pleasantly surprised by the improvements that have been made.

I will be traveling with the golf team on the day of our meeting—returning from my second favorite golf course in the world, Pasatimepo Golf Club—and my flight will probably not return in time for the start of the meeting. If this is the case, you will I’m sure show our esteemed Veep Tom Link the same respect you show me…good luck Tom.

The monthly meeting was held March 11, 2003 under the El Dorado Park Golf Course restaurant auxiliary tent. Your $6 put corned beef and cabbage; sided by potatoes in a sauce that had a different, slightly odd tasting sauce in front of you. President Livingstone called the meeting to order at 7:10 pm and led the membership in allegiance to our flag.

Past Presidents in attendance: Tom Conlisk, Richard Scoville, Steve Shure, Don Marmion, Ray McElhenney, Mike Montgomery, and Greg O’Brien.

The minutes from the last meeting and Treasurer’s report as printed in the newsletter were accepted.

Pres. Livingstone noted that a memorial was in the March newsletter for our 1983 Past President, Bob Wilson. Bob passed away in November 2002. A moment of silence was observed. It was also noted that Mike Callahan had surgery for kidney cancer and is at home recovering. We can all include asking for Mike’s full recovery in our prayers.

Past president Don Marmion missed collect the cash prize for the membership drawing, as he was home with an illness. Don is hoping that his number can be drawn again tonight.

Three new members took the podium, stating their name, occupation, and presumed handicap. These guys are claiming way too much handicap, one even blamed his putter. Greg O’Brien took him on the informative tour.

Tony Rizzo, El Dorado General Manager: The fairways are to be widened a bit and the rough will be cut down on number 1 to help with the speed of play. Tony fielded and answered questions from the membership. The aeration is schedule for next Monday, the day following our tournament.

Two raffle tickets that have special markings on them have been sold. Frank Pecora and Jerry Leininger held them. Frank won his choice of tee times, while Jerry pocketed $10. Their tickets are still good for the raffle the follows the meeting.

Ray McElhenney - Golf Commissioner: Brief review tonight. They plan to hold their meetings on the last Wednesday of each month. They had 7,900 rounds in January. That is 3% more than last year. El Dorado accumulative revenue was $361,000 in January. There is a lot of money in the CIP, but we can’t get to it at this time. The strategic plan is the city has hired people from the outside to observe what we are doing, and how to generate more money for the city. Outside tournaments are still a concern, especially since Skylinks did not close. Lastly, Jay Carballo has made a commitment to restore Skylinks condition. We’ll see what happens. Goldman / Sachs has officially purchased American Golf.

Team Play: Tom McCutcheon thanked everyone for their support of the Thursday team. Jim Baber, Saturday captain, wanted to express thanks to Tony and Jorge, to Mark Miller for his website support, and to Ton Link for the efforts he expended to help facilitate the team this year. We won our division and playoffs are to start a week from Saturday at Los Verdes. Jim was really pleased with his 22-player team and has enjoyed being their captain. They will do their best in the playoffs.

Nick Zamora – Entertainment: Immediately requested the membership to hold their applause. General Old went well. It was a brisk with some wind, a bit cold, but we had great views of the mountain ranges that surround that course. Los Serranos is fast coming up, April 6. Our times are from 10:00 to 11:30. Cost is $80. Format will be taking the 3 best balls on the par 3 and par 5 holes and the 2 best balls on the par 4 holes. Nick had a question about the slope, it is still the same. The bus trip to Soboba Springs is scheduled for May 3. The bus will be leaving El Dorado at 5:30. Nick is trying a new format, a 4-step waltz. It’ go 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2 to see yourselves around the layout. With our new format for printing the computer cards for tournaments, if you make any modifications to your team please let Nick know ahead of time so that you card reflects the team you’ll have that day.

Mike Marmer – Rules: The suction cup on the putter was researched via the disqualification on Saturday team play. The USGA says this is not considered part of the grip. The hard card for local rules will be available for our next tourney. We are allowing stance and swing relief with no penalty from the 100 and 150 yard bushes, and lake on hole #8 is now a water hazard, not a lateral hazard. Tom McCutcheon interjected that you also have free lie of ball relief from the bush yardage markers.

Newsletter Editor – Don Russell: Don walked by the front of the podium and was recognized for the fine job he is doing.

Cairo Piercy – Quad Club and GOM: He has 39 of the 40 players needed for Quad Club, but will still need players on the standby. Payment for the event is due to him NLT next monthly meeting. Please put your money in the Men’s Club drawer. If you have any questions give him a call. Cost to ride will be $44, to walk $32. Cairo only wants the $32. The $12 cart cost will be collected from Rec Park the day we play. GOM for February as follows. Gross went to Jim Fuchs with a nice 69, and the Net winner was Tom Link who won on a card off over John Davis (JD). 2002 GOY trophies were handed out. Gross winner was Doug Jones, and the Net winner was JD. The January GOM plaques were presented to Doug Jones, Gross and Tom Conlisk, Net. Next month starts Daylight Savings Time so we will have a 9-hole tournament on meeting night day. The Pro Shop will have a manila envelope for you to sign up and put your $5 entry fee in. You will turn in your card for the front nine, take half of your handicap taking half of your handicap from the tees you played. You can play at any time of the day for this tournament, so long as you play with another member, and from at least the white stones.

Rich Dennison – Putting Contest: Rich will have a putting course set up for us to test our accuracy skills starting next month before the meeting. Dudley will be at the putting green outside of the tent running the game from 5:00 to 6:30.

Immediate Past President Greg O’Brien – Hole-In-One Fund: The kitty for this fund is now up to $808. Anyone playing this Sunday who is not in the insurance fund should be sure to get in.

Pres. Livingstone noted that we have a serious concern that are times when members play but don’t post all the rounds they play. The Handicap Committee chose a random date starting sheet from the clubhouse and checked members who played that day and checked to ensure they posted. The members who did not post that day have been notified via a letter from Jerry Leininger.

Jerry Leininger – Handicap: The Board of Directors will implement a policy concerning the problem. You must post scores played within 24 hours of ending that round. If you are not able to post for any reason call Jerry, Don Russell, or Dick Scoville to get this score recorded. We are following a policy of where if you are found in violation of following the posting requirement 3 times in a 6-month period you will be suspended from all club activities. More information on the complete process will be posted on all of the available places, including on our website.

Tom Link – Tournaments: February tournament went fairly well. We still seem to be having a problem with getting off of the first fairway and moving along. We finished between 5:00 and 5:15 very fortunate to get the last group in before darkness set in. The March tournament will be a 5-some Reverse Waltz, 3-2-1, 3-2-1, … Our tee times are from 6:00 to 12:45. Tom has a few singles openings available. See him if you want to play. Tom also uses the computer-printed scorecards for our home tournaments. If anyone falls out of your group, or you have any changes please call him to advise. The April tourney will be a 5-some where we score the 3 best balls on the par 4 holes, and the 2 best balls on the par 3 and par 5 holes. May is our Member-Member. Entry forms will be on the website starting next week. We have some specials added on for the Member-Member tournament. To compete for prizes members will have to have played in at least 3 club tournaments in the last year. Our winners will be sponsored in a 4-ball event. These teammates’ handicaps have to be within 5 strokes of each other to qualify. Tom called 20 names to start the April tournament sign ups.

New Business – Larry Simpson took the podium. Larry is affiliated with Mesa Verde C.C. and an annual tournament that they hold that is hosted by Coors. He has authorization to fill openings that are available. The cost will be $275 which includes everything, lunch, golf, cart, surf and turf dinner afterward, and l of the Coors light on the course that you want. The field is 144. It is always a real fun day. You will play the round in approximately 4 hours, that is hard to believe but you will. The date is Monday March 24, 2003. Get a hold of Larry if you are interested.

Rick Evans conducted the raffle. Don Russell pulled the tickets, and Cairo Piercy started out handing out the prizes. We gave away a lot of prizes that included cash, head covers, hats, golf balls, range cards, and more. Cairo got worn out from this exercise and retreated to behind the table. Todd Thiele and Chris Benes were multi winners. That’s my teammates for you!

Membership drawing was for $70. The number of Mark Fritsche was pulled. Mark was not at the meeting. Next month it will be for $80.

Mike Vaughn
Secretary

Unfortunately our March Tournament was rained out. We received over 3.5 inches of rain in a 24 hour period on Saturday prior to our scheduled Tournament on Sunday. When we arrived at the course on Sunday it was still raining. We took a cart out on the course and came to the decision that it was not playable when the tournament was due to begin. For those of you that have paid your fees I will be giving credit for future Tournaments held at El Dorado this year. Please use the credit coupon in this newsletter to assist me in the distribution.

There are a few times available after 12:00 for our April Tournament and most often there are cancellations, contact me to get on the waiting list and I will attempt to place you in a group. The Format of the Tournament will be 3 best balls on the Four Pars and 2 best balls on the 3 & 5 Pars.

We are starting to take sign ups for our Member/Member on May 17^th & 18^th. The entry fee is $80.00 per member which includes 2 days of Golf, a Friday night pairings party, and hors d’oeuvre both Saturday and Sunday afternoon. This is one our most popular Tournaments, get your application in early. If you need to play early or late please indicate that on your application and I will do my best to accommodate you. The entry forms will be posted on the Website and in this newsletter.

I would like to thank the members for your attention when I presented the Posting Policy at last months meeting. From the reaction, it looks like the membership also is serious about posting all your scores. I have received some phone calls this month asking me to post scores that were not posted for one reason or another, that fine. Remember if the computer at the course you played is not working, you forgot to post for any reason , all you need to do is one of the following:

1. Drop your score card in the slotted drawer next to the Computer. Please mark on it “ PLEASE POST”. Include the course you played, date, tees played, adjusted score, and sign and have the card attested. Make sure to include your SCGA membership number.

2. Contact any one of the Handicap Committee and give us the same information as above and we’ll see it gets posted for you. My E mail address is jlroca@earthlink.net and E mails work great for this purpose.

3. Bring your away score cards back to El Dorado to be posted. Make sure you include all the information as in number 1 above.

Here are a few interesting facts according to the USGA Handicap Research Team ………

· The average player is expected to play to his course handicap or better only about 25 % of the time

· The players best score in 20 should be only 2 strokes better than his course handicap.

Course Handicap is the number of handicap strokes a player receives from a specific set of tees at he course being played.

I just returned from attending a three-day rules seminar given jointly by the PGA and USGA. Most attendees were rules officials, committeemen, or other officials of various golf associations. There were also various PGA club professionals in attendance.

The seminar consisted of going over each rule in The Rules of Golf along with each definition. The seminar was presented by Trey Holland of the USGA, and David Price of the PGA. The seminar was tedious at times, but in the long run very informative.

For you Saturday team play members that are playing four ball matches see if you know the answer to these questions:

1. Player A and Player B are playing a match. Player A hits his tee shot in the fairway and Player B hits his tee shot into tall rough on the side of the fairway. While Player B begins searching for his ball Player A, who was not away, hits his second shot to the green. After searching for several minutes Player B asks Player A to keep searching for his ball while he returns to the tee to play a provisional ball. Player B then hits a second ball from the tee, Player A finds a ball within 5 minutes of the time when Player B began his original search for his ball, and Player B identifies it as his original ball. Both players then play out the hole in five strokes. Before teeing off on the next hole Player A makes a claim.

See Rule 27-2a, and Rule 15-2. In playing a provisional ball one must announce to his opponent his intention to do so, and must play the provisional ball ‘before’ search begins for the original ball. If he fails to do so and plays another ball, such ball becomes the ball in play under penalty of stroke and distance. Another interpretation would be as Player B’s ball was found within five minutes, and he had not properly played a provisional ball, under Rule 15-2 he had played a wrong ball resulting in loss of hole. The Answer is B.

2. A and B are playing a match. On a par three hole B tees off. A then asks B what club he used. B replies that he used a five iron. What is the ruling?

As this is match play the answer is B. A loses the hole as soon as he asked B for advice as he at that point incurred a penalty of “loss of hole,” and as the hole was completed at that point in time it is irrelevant if B answered or not.

Well another month has come and gone! The Commissioners meeting was again not real "filled" with new items. The play for the month of February was as expected down due to 6 days of rain. For the month El Dorado was down 15.79% and all the courses combined were down 16.32%. For the year we are down 6.09%. The rounds for the clubs is very much in line. C.I.P. funds are at 875 thousand while the junior golf funds are at 57 thousand. The income for February was 282 thousand, all these are pretty "healthy" figures.

We had a guest speaker from the company who is putting together the strategic outline for the city of Long Beach. They conducted 500 interviews at the courses as the golfers walked off the 18th Green. They asked questions from price to food and customer service. These interviews are the first step in what will become the new Strategic Plan for the future of Long Beach Golf.

As the summer approaches the Commissioners will be asked to address the current policy and procedures that are now in place. This will be a very important task and we are all looking forward to the task. F.Y.I.!!! All of the results from the interviews done at our course were very positive except for the food area??? They even asked if they would pay from two dollars to four dollars more to play our course. 65% said they would pay $4.00 more, and 87% said they would ante up $2.00 dollars more. The question was asked, does this mean we are looking at a price increase? The response was no, so don't get excited!!!!. Enough for now.

GOLFER OF THE MONTH

FEBRUARY’S RESULTS, THE GROSS WINNER IS JIM FUCHS WITH A SCORE OF (69). THE NET WINNER IS OUR ILLUSTRIOUS V.P. TOM LINK WITH A GROSS SCORE OF (74) NET (63). HE WON ON A CARD OFF EDGING OUT OUR GOLFER OF THE YEAR JOHN DAVIS. HONORABLE MENTION GOES TO KEVIN KAVANAUGH WHO TURNED IN A SIZZLING NET (64).

9 HOLE TOURNAMENT

OUR 9-HOLE TOURNAMENT WILL RESTART ON THE APRIL 8^TH MEETING DAY. AND WE WILL HAVE IT EVERY MONTH UNTIL DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME GOES AWAY. THERE WILL BE A YELLOW MANILA ENVELOPE AT THE STARTER’S DESK. TO ENTER YOU MUST PLACE $5.00 IN IT BEFORE YOU START. YOU MUST PLAY WITH ANOTHER MEMBER. YOU MUST TURN IN A SIGNED AND ATTESTED CARD BY 6:30 P.M. YOUR CARD MUST HAVE YOUR GROSS SCORE ON THE FRONT NINE ONLY, MINUS HALF YOUR TOTAL 18 HOLE HANDICAP. TOP THREE PLACES WILL RECEIVE PAYOUTS. CURRENT INDEX WILL BE USED AND THE APRIL TOURNEY WILL BE PLAYED FROM THE WHITE TEES. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS DIRECT THEM TOWARD CAIRO PIERCY.

QUAD CLUB

THE QUAD CLUB TOURNAMENT WILL BE HELD ON SATURDAY APRIL 26^TH AT REC. PARK. THOSE WHO HAVE SIGNED UP MUST HAVE YOUR ENTRY FEE TURNED IN BY THURSDAY APRIL 10^TH. I WOULD PREFER IF YOU PAID IT AT THE APRIL 8^TH MEETING, OR DROP IT IN THE MEN’S CLUB DRAWER IN THE PRO SHOP. THE FEE IS $32.00. IT INCLUDES GREEN FEE AND SPECIAL EVENTS BETWEEN OUR MEMBERS ONLY. IF YOU CHOOSE TO RIDE YOU WILL PAY FOR THE CART TO THE STARTER ON THE DAY OF THE TOURNAMENT. IF YOU ARE ON THE STAND BY LIST YOU WILL BE RECEIVING A PHONE CALL FROM ME. I ALREADY HAVE TWO SPOTS, SOMETHING ABOUT A CRUISE.

CAIRO

Mike Vaughn Secretary

GOLFER OF THE MONTH

9 HOLE TOURNAMENT

QUAD CLUB

Mike Vaughn
Secretary