2023 Newsletters

Happy New Year to all! It’s hard to believe 2023 is here already. As your President, elected unopposed, you should have no expectations of me. On the other hand, I will have very high expectations of the Board of Directors and our Membership to maintain El Dorado Men’s Golf Club as one of the best public clubs in Southern California!

We have a full slate of tournaments for 2023 with Brad Wilcox running our Monthly Home Tournaments and Mike Petersen running our Away Tournaments including a Weekender at Singing Hills in September. These Tournaments plus Thursday and Saturday Team Play, Club Championships, Senior Club Championships, Flights, and the return of Quad Club in April, we have a full schedule to satisfy your competitive golfing appetite!

A note to new Members as well as old: Each player must Sign-Up thru the Member Portal on our website to enter Tournaments. Seems simple, but you’d be surprised of the amount of “cat herding” the Tournament Chairman must do. Help Brad and Mike out by Signing up for events early!

The Christmas Shotgun Tournament went off well! After a cool morning we ended up having a great day for golf. There was some good golf played and some not so good. My group wasn’t the worst, but we contended! Unfortunately, we had three teams disqualified. Two teams turned scorecards without 2 signatures. One team failed to turn in their scorecard in a timely manner. Lessons learned?

A Flight Gross winners at 140 (-4) Mike Petersen, Steve Sterry and Scott Sterry
A Flight Net winners at 135 (-9): Omar Diaz, Noah Busch and Justin Vanderbroek
B Flight Gross winners at 154: Dave Hasselman, John Hasselman and Drew Kroner
B Flight Net winners at 135 (-6): Jesse Duncan, Conner Burke and Michael Burke
C Flight Gross winners at 161: Emmet Hargrave, Josh Hendrix and Brian Lineberger
C Flight Net winners at 135 (-9): Bryan Knigge, Eric Kent and Josh Dubón
D Flight Gross winners at 172: Garret Marks, Greg Marks and Ryan Strong
D Flight Net winners at 138 (-6): Danny Martin, Jim McDavid and Jeff Allman

Complete results are posted on the website.

Fairways and greens,
Don Didier

On Tuesday, December 13, 2022, the monthly meeting of the El Dorado Park Men’s Golf Club was held in the Big White Tent. The pre-meeting was not meat loaf but instead a fine Holiday Feast of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, cornbread and cookies for dessert. For $7 this is the best deal in town. Have you been grocery shopping lately?

The meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm by President Terry Fulford who led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. There were approximately 130 members in attendance including Past Presidents Mike Montgomery, Terry Fulford, Nick Zamora, Tom Retterath, Don Marmion, Cliff Aichele, Richard Scoville and (Life Member) Bob Livingstone. New Member Lat Syprasert introduced himself and was given the New Member Spiel by Nick Zamora. The previous month’s Meeting Minutes and Treasurer’s Report were approved.

Directors’ Reports were as follow:

Director Bob Livingstone gave a shout out to four members who recently competed in various SCGA events as representatives of ElDo: Jeff Thomas, Jim Fuchs, Patrick Soldana and Alex Resurreccion. Bob noted that none of the three suffered any serious injuries. As Thursday Team Play Captain, Bob explained Team Play for the benefit of our many new members. Contact Bob if you’re interested in trying out for a spot on the team. Bob also noted that past member John Tamney had recently passed away.

Director Mike Montgomery reminded everyone that he’d be selling tickets for the Big Raffle for 10 minutes after the meeting before starting the drawing.

Director Omar Diaz briefly discussed Saturday Team Play. He noted that there were no new rules to discuss this month.

Special Events Director Brad Wilcox discussed results of the November Superintendent’s Revenge Tournament and announced that Special Events for the December Christmas Tournament would include Skins, Net Par or better North of Willow, and Net Par or Better on all the even holes. Brad didn’t say much about the sin of Slow Play but you know he was thinking it.

Handicap Chairman Wally Gordon thanked 98% of the membership for doing a good job posting ALL your scores in a timely manner. You other 2% better watch out ‘cause Wally’s gonna getcha.

Director Mike Vaughn announced the winners and gave out rewards for the Flights Competition. Mike noted that we had 80 players and 5 flights this year – another excellent turnout.

Director Mark Ziegenhagen announced the Golfers of the Month for November. Net GOM was Andrew Pulido with a 66, while Gross GOM honors went to Beau Wesson with a 69. The Golfer of the Year Tournament, a competition among all of the GOM winners during the year, will be held in March. Ziggy also discussed the Derbies to be held immediately after the Christmas Tournament.

Director Nick Zamora “just wanted to thank and say goodbye to the Board and all Club members for their help and support" as Nick won’t be serving on the Board next year.

Course Superintendent/Head Greenskeeper Marc Lilliberg thanked everyone for the support that the Club gives the course. In actuality we should be thanking Marc for the great job that he and his staff do in maintaining the best kept course in Long Beach.

Vice President/Tournament Chairman Don Didier briefly discussed the results of the November Superintendent’s Revenge Tournament, noting that the aforementioned Mr. Lilliberg did indeed get his revenge as only six groups were under par Net. There are 192 players signed up for the December Tournament. Don noted that this was his last meeting as Tournament Chairman so if you don’t like your starting times next year, talk to Brad.

New Business: President Fulford announced the slate of officers for 2023. They include the following: President – Don Didier; Vice President/Tournament Chairmen – Brad Wilcox; Secretary – Rob Kuehn; Treasurer – Bob Livingstone; Returning Directors: Mark Ziegenhagen and Omar Diaz; and new directors Rich Koskela (Special Events), Mike Petersen (Entertainment), and Doug Balfour (Special Assignments).

Old Business: There was no old business.

The $50 Drawing winner was Steven Canales.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:40, after which Director Mike Montgomery ran the drawing and gave away $12.6 Million worth of prizes. Or maybe it just seemed like that much.

Rob Kuehn
Secretary/Membership Director

December membership is 504.

Due to work changes among some of our stalwart Thursday Team members, we are looking for some able-bodied Eldo members to join our SCGA Thursday Team. Our match schedule is as follows:

Wed. Jan. 11 at Lakewood
Thr. Jan. 19 at Eldo vs Lakewood
Thr. Jan. 26 at Eldo vs Industry Hills
Thr. Feb. 2 at Industry Hills
Wed. Feb 8 at Los Verdes
Thr. Feb. 16 at Eldo vs Los Verdes

Matches generally start at 9AM and the cost is $65 which includes, range balls, golf, lunch and adult (or soft) beverages. If you have any questions or are interested in playing, please contact me at boblivy@gmail.com .

Thanks, Bob Livingstone
Thursday Team Play Captain

Happy New Year everyone. The Christmas Tournament 2022 is in the books and was a huge success with over 60% of the field cashing. What a great tournament to end your term as VP, great job Don, you are leaving some big shoes to fill.

All Christmas Tournament Results Posted on Website.

Part 8 of the seven sins of slow play: Bad Golf Etiquette

I am creating my own rant here as it became clear to me at our last tournament that not all our members are considerate of other golfers. To me, Golf is to be enjoyed with friends, fun & nature, leaving the golf course in the same (if not better) condition than you left it is part of that formula. During our last tournament our group encountered at least 6 bunkers that players ahead of us (maybe not directly) had obviously been in because they FORGOT to rake the bunker behind them, this is completely unacceptable within our club. If you see groups in front of you doing this, please don’t hesitate to call them out on it, (or report the incident to a Director) everyone deserves to play with the same conditions and we need to do everything we can to make that happen! I hope I am not alone on this!

Some notable winners from Christmas Tournament:

Well, what’s Christmas without Santa, Santa’s Reindeer herder Andrew Pulido earned a nice $962 for tending to par or better on all the even numbered holes, 6 other players missed out by 1 hole!! Well done Andrew.

North of Willow had 30 players who had net par or better with only 29 cashing, maybe next time Sheldon!

Gross Skins:
A flight with 5 winners J. Vanderbroek birdie #1, R. Carroll eagle #4, Scott Sterry birdie #6, V. Followell eagle #7 & J. Hasselman birdie #9.

B flight with 10 winners E. Kent birdie #1, K. Hall birdie #2, T. Cox birdie #3, D. Garcia birdie #4, G. Ramsey birdies #9 & #16, L. Lipman birdie #12, R. Strong birdie #13, J Benedetti birdie #14 & K. Sharp birdie #18 (because B Knigge forgot to enter skins)

C fight with 3 winners T. Braswell birdie #2 (because Felsinger didn’t get in), D. Martin birdie #5 & B. Ball birdie #14

I would like to thank all Directors & Members for making my job (SE) a bit easier, it means a lot to me when people chip in and help when the need is there no hesitation. We have a great core of Directors & Members with a lot of new younger members starting to join this great Club, don’t hesitate to find out how you can do more for our Club and golf course.

It gives me great pleasure to hand over the Blue Box to Rich Koskela, welcome Rich to the Board when you stop by to pick up your winnings!!

SE for 2023 January Scramble:
C.T.P. holes #9 & 17 for $5 ea.
In the Circle/On the Green holes #3 & 12 for $5 ea.
$20 to get in everything!

Brad
VP & Tournament Chairman

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a Happy Holiday season! Looking forward to representing the best club in SoCal as your new Entertainment Director! We’ve got several away events scheduled for 2023 at some great golf courses.

Our first away event of the new year will take place this month on Sunday, January 29th at Recreation Park 18. Sign-ups are already open on the El Dorado Men’s Club website and are going fast! Please sign up as soon as possible.

The format for this away trip tournament will be a 1,2,3 Waltz. Entries include Green Fee, Closest to the pin & Prize Fund. The Closest to the pin holes are 5, 12, 16 and 2nd shot on 15. Carts are optional but need to be paid for at the course. We’ll also have two optional side pot games, $5 gross skins and $5 net skins, sign up for these pot games when you register. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at - entertain@eldoradogolfclub.org

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! We are now starting 2023...I am again Handicap Chairman for 2023 and I have elected to change our Handicap Committee. Our Handicap Committee for 2023 will consist of:

Wally Gordon - Chairman
Kerry Bryan
Vern Followell
Doug Jones
Bob Livingstone

Let's welcome them all to the team and let's have a great year!

I would also like to thank Al Ostberg for being on the Handicap Committee in 2022 and his time and effort for all the prior years he has supported the Handicap Committee. Thanks Al!!!

We have Most Improved Golfer for the Quarter
1st - Jim Jamison with improved from 3.9 to 2.3 a factor of 1.11.........wins $50.00
2nd - Bryan McMahon - improved from 14.6 to 12.2 a factor of 1.10
3rd - Ron Searcy - improved from 19.6 to 17.3 a factor of 1.08

Most Improved Golfer of the Year
1st - Sasha Bozic - improved from 1.9 to +1.3 a factor of 1.299........Wins $100.00
2nd - Darrin Jusi- improved from 3.2 to 0.4 a factor of 1.23...............wins $75.00
3rd - Dan Cormack - improved from 14.8 to 10.0 a factor of 1.22.....wins $50.00

All our ANNUAL winners and Jim Jamison can pick up their winnings at the General Meeting, January 10, 2023.

Hit 'em straight and hit 'em flush!!

Hello, El Dorado Men’s Golf Club membership. I will be posing as you Rules Chairman for 2023 following in Omar Diaz’s footsteps. I will be here to assist with rules issues as best I can and then defer to our very own USGA Rules Official Bob Livingstone as needed. I do know that there is a total of 24 Rules broken into 9 categories, so how hard can it be? Well, the answer to that question is that the Rules are not too hard in themselves. However, they can be very nuanced, and it can be to your advantage to know all your options when faced with a Rule’s situation. The USGA website has tons of Rules information in various forms that can be extremely helpful. I suggest taking the time now and then to use those tools for freshening up your Rule’s knowledge.

Happy New Year, see you at the course.

Cliff Aichele
Rules Chairman

Treasurer's Report - December 31, 2022

Balance on November 30, 2022		38,341.33
Income
Memberships	7,890.00
Christmas Tourney CC Entries	19,355.00
Christmas Tourney Cash/Check Entries	3,062.00
Super's Revenge Entry	80.00
Rec Away CC Entries	493.00
Hole in One Insurance	35.00
Sale of Men's Club Shirts	600.00
Interest	0.60
Total December Income	31,515.60
Expenses
Membership Dues - SCGA		2,556.00
Christmas Refunds		434.00
Scorecrds		49.50
Website Hosting Fee		371.76
BOD Meeting		408.00
Member Drawing - S. Canales		50.00
Christmas Green Fees		9,000.00
Christmas Cart Fees		2,500.00
Christmas Range Balls		500.00
Christmas Tee Prize Bags		4,410.00
Christmas Scrip		10,040.00
Christmas Special Events		3,380.00
Sat & Thrs 2023 Team Play Entries		550.00
Sat & Thrs 2023 Team Play Subsidies		2,000.00
Maint Crew Thank You Party		798.78
Net T of CC Entry (Fuchs)		155.00
Flights Trophies		637.71
GOM Trophies		75.79
Sycuan 2023 Weekender Deposit		2,260.32
Gifts/Cards to Sung, Marc and Bing		499.50
Q4 and Yearlong Most Improved		275.00
Credit Card Fees		320.54
Total December Expenses		41,271.90
Balance on December 31, 2022		28,585.03

Respectfully submitted,
Bob Livingstone, Treasurer


NOTES: The Club added $7,847 to the Christmas Tournament; $4,410 for tee prize and $3,437 for scrip.

We have prepaid $2,560.32 as deposits for 2022 Away Trips and $2,550 for Team Play entries and subsidies.

The Hole-in-One Insurance is currently $2,080 (of which $300 is in Scrip in the Blue Box).

We have $493 already paid for entries for the Rec Park away trip.

We assign membership fees received in the last 4 months of 2022 toward the 2023 budget, so we will be carrying forward to 2023, approximately $13,500 in funds that were unused in 2022.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions.