With every player on the Pittsburgh A team roster scoring 5 or more of the 9 points possible during the round robin play, and a 4-2 victory over Buffalo in the Gold Medal match, The Cup has come back home!

For three of the past 4 years, Pittsburgh showed up with not only a strong top team, but good players on the B squad -- and this year a C team as well. (Libby I won't take your money even though Team Iron did not beat the A Team... it was a 2-2-2 tie) The Steelhead C team took 2.5 of the possible 6 match points from the A Team during the teams' head to head match, including the only time A-Team Master super sub Jay Gobrecht didn't win his match. Steelhead captain Michael Hoeg tied Gobrecht. I know the A team gains power from our fellow club members who are also in attendance. The other Pittsburgh teams pick off points from the teams that the A Team in competing with to get into the Gold Medal match

The big story was the play of Jay Gobrecht, who was a Thursday before the tourney substitution for the injured Jerry Gotcher. IMO Gotcher would have won as many points had he played, and to his credit, he helped line up Gobrecht to fill in for him when he knew he couldn't go. Heck, they have the same initials, and Pittsburgh didn't lose a beat.

The second line of the story was the play of the Open 1 (Chris Deitzel) and Open 2 (Tim Wright) players who both went 5-2-3, including a win and a tie respectively in the Gold Medal match to power the team to the championship. Chris stepped up to the A Team this year, as did Sid Olcott who also won his Gold Medal match, and finished 4-3-3.

What an awesome feeling it was to be waiting my turn to tee off on the final hole of the Gold Medal match, see The A team's Am 2 player Greg Meitus (who has been on each of the three championship teams) running UP the hill from the pond and gallery below to tell me that we had already clinched the Cup! My match with Buffalo captain Sheri Jazembak was tied 2-2 and I was about to play the hole on which I played badly and lost 1.5 points to Alanna Houck, Sharon Jenkins and Leroy Jenkins (two losses and a tie that should have been two ties and a win) during round robin tournament matches.

Greg's message made the result of my last hole meaningless to the overall result, but freed me totally to laser my drive, arc my approach shot over the pond and nearly in the basket perched just 5 feet from the water's edge, and after high-fiving the Pittsburgh players gathered to watch the conclusion, ram in a 35-foot uphill putt with nothing but water behind to halve the match with Sheri.

Sheri played great all tournament winning 8 points for her team. The women/grandmaster division was a story in itself. With all of the 6 women playing from shorter red tees, the 4 male grandmasters faced tee shots on 6 of the longer holes that required two shots to the greeen that, if not thrown well, usually resulted in a point for the women who could reach the basket from their tee.

The tees were a great leveler in the Women/Grandmaster division...I had the best record of the 4 GMs and I was 3-3-1 against the women.

The number of women players has increased to the point that perhaps next year the GM will be gone from that division. In the eight years of the tournament, the team match play event has grown to ten teams and established a venue that people want to come back to. Buffalo/Niagara also had three teams, and Ohio had two teams for the first time.

The biggest disappointment was the absence of ALL Canadian teams, including the defending champion Toronto. I believe Pittsburgh would have beaten Toronto and any other Canadian teams as well this year. A lot of things must have gone wrong for St. Thomas, Ontario or Ottawa teams to not make the trip.

Look for a return of the Canadians, a maximum field of 16 teams, pool play, 6-player rosters of 2 open, 2 Ams, 1 woman, and 1 master next year -- and of course all of the talk between the players around the pigroast campfire, the band rockin' off the porch of the bunkhouse, Mother Brown's strawberry-rhubarb pies and jams, roasted sweet corn on the cob and the beauty of the Brown's Farm course that sets up very well for match play.

Thanks to Grandaddy and Lingus for hosting, to Rex for an awesome scoring spreadsheet to manage the match play format, and to all the team captains who brought their players to the event.

As for the Cup, PFDS plans to polish and shine the trophy (which was sadly tarnished and smudged from it's brief stay in Canada), engrave the winning team members names on its base, and display it in the Trophy room at the Western Pennsylvania Sports museum. Details about a public presentation forthcoming.

Pittsburgh Rocks!
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> Pittsburgh 1st Place
Sid Olcott Greg Mietus Chris Deitzel Tim Wright Jay Gobrecht J. Gary Dropcho Round Team
Opposing Round Am 1 Am 2 Open 1 Open 2 Master GM / W Record Team Holes Record
Teams W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won Wins Ties Losses Points Won Wins Ties Losses
Buffalo 2 1 W 5 W 6 L 2 W 2 W 4 W 3 5 0 1 5 22 1 0 0
Chainbiters 2 L 2 W 5 T 3 W 4 W 4 W 3 4 1 1 4.5 21 2 0 0
Rochester 3 W 4 L 2 T 1 L 1 W 4 W 5 3 1 2 3.5 17 3 0 0
Lunch
Niagara 4 T 3 L 0 W 3 L 3 W 5 W 5 3 1 2 3.5 19 4 0 0
Ironwood 5 T 3 W 4 L 2 T 3 W 3 L 3 2 2 2 3 18 4 1 0
Buffalo 6 T 2 T 1 W 2 W 6 W 3 W 2 4 2 0 5 16 5 1 0
Sleep
Steelhead 7 L 2 W 4 W 4 W 2 T 3 L 2 3 1 2 3.5 17 6 1 0
Ohio 2 8 W 3 T 3 W 4 T 2 W 5 L 0 3 2 1 4 17 7 1 0
Ohio Six-Shooters 9 L 1 L 1 T 1 W 3 W 5 T 1 2 2 2 3 12 7 2 0
Buffalo Finals W 3 L 2 W 5 T 3 W 4 T 2 3 2 1 4 19 8 2 0
Totals 4-3-3 28 4-4-2 28 5-2-3 27 5-2-3 29 9-0-1 40 5-3-2 26 29 12 13 39 178 </pre><hr />
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> Ironwood 6th Place
Rob Johnson Kurt Poole Michael Speaker Dave Olcott Curtis Spence Alanna Houck Round Team
Opposing Round Am 1 Am 2 Open 1 Open 2 Master GM / W Record Team Holes Record
Teams W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won Wins Ties Losses Points Won Wins Ties Losses
Buffalo 1 W 6 L 1 L 1 L 0 W 4 L 2 2 0 4 2 14 0 0 1
Steelhead 2 W 2 L 1 T 3 L 3 W 4 W 6 3 1 2 3.5 19 1 0 1
Ohio 2 3 T 3 W 5 L 0 W 3 W 4 W 3 4 1 1 4.5 18 2 0 1
Lunch
Ohio Six-Shooters 4 L 2 T 1 L 2 W 5 L 0 W 5 2 1 3 2.5 15 2 0 2
Pittsburgh 5 T 3 L 2 W 3 T 3 L 1 W 4 2 2 2 3 16 2 1 2
Niagara 6 L 3 L 0 W 4 W 5 L 1 W 3 3 0 3 3 16 2 2 2
Sleep
Rochester 7 L 2 T 2 L 2 L 3 L 0 W 2 1 1 4 1.5 11 2 2 3
Chainbiters 8 W 4 W 5 T 1 T 3 W 4 W 4 4 2 0 5 21 3 2 3
Buffalo 2 9 W 4 W 4 L 1 L 2 W 5 W 3 4 0 2 4 19 4 2 3
Finals
Totals 4-3-2 29 3-4-2 21 2-5-2 17 3-4-2 27 5-4-0 23 8-1-0 32 25 8 21 29 149 </pre><hr />

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre> Steelhead 7th Place
Dave Kuhrt Chris Hoeg Rich Givens Eric Eckstrom Michael Hoeg Sharon Jenkins Round Team
Opposing Round Am 1 Am 2 Open 1 Open 2 Master GM / W Record Team Holes Record
Teams W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won W L T Holes won Wins Ties Losses Points Won Wins Ties Losses
Niagara 1 L 1 L 2 L 1 L 1 L 2 L 2 0 0 6 0 9 0 0 1
Ironwood 2 L 0 W 4 T 3 W 5 L 1 L 1 2 1 3 2.5 14 0 0 2
Buffalo 2 3 L 1 T 3 L 2 W 5 W 3 L 1 2 1 3 2.5 15 0 0 3
Lunch
Chainbiters 4 W 4 T 1 W 3 L 1 W 4 W 6 4 1 1 4.5 19 1 0 3
Buffalo 5 L 2 T 2 W 6 T 2 L 2 L 1 1 2 3 2 15 1 0 4
Ohio 2 6 T 1 W 6 L 2 L 1 W 4 W 4 3 1 2 3.5 18 2 0 4
Sleep
Pittsburgh 7 W 3 L 1 L 3 L 1 T 3 W 3 2 1 3 2.5 14 2 0 5
Ohio Six-Shooters 8 W 2 L 0 W 4 W 5 L 1 T 2 3 1 2 3.5 14 3 0 5
Rochester 9 L 1 W 4 T 2 L 2 L 0 W 3 2 1 3 2.5 12 3 0 6
Finals
Totals 3-5-1 15 3-3-3 23 3-4-2 26 3-5-1 23 3-5-1 20 4-4-1 23 19 9 26 23.5 130 </pre><hr />

Some other highlights from the Can-Am Cup.

Rob Johnson got his 6th career ace with a firebird skip shot.
Alanna Houck going 8-1 in her first Can-Am Cup.
Curtis Spence losing his car key Friday night and not finding them until right before the final round.
Me throwing the flashflight frisbee into the pond Friday night and getting it back Saturday morning once it floated to the bank.

http://img3.glowfoto.com/images/2006/09/22-0407339365T.jpg (http://www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=22-040733L&y=2006&m=09&t=jpg&rand=9365&srv=img3)
http://img3.glowfoto.com/images/2006/09/22-0407408576T.jpg (http://www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=22-040740L&y=2006&m=09&t=jpg&rand=8576&srv=img3)
Hole 9 at Brown's Farm
South Dayton, NY

What a great weekend!!! I knew we had a good team. Glad we kicked some butt in the finals!!!! HAlfway through the match, I knew Sid had just won on hole 8, Greg was down 3-2, Timmy was down 3-1, and I had just moved ahead 3-1 on hole 7. I was kinda worried when I saw that Timmy and Greg were both losing......but watching Tim from the group ahead, I saw him park both holes 6 and 7 to tie the match back up. And then on hole 9 Tim hit a huge putt for 3 to get the tie!!! I beat up on Luke 5-1 after he missed a putt on hole 4. Once that happened I knew it was time to put on the pressure. a 3 on hole 5 , a 2 on hole 6 got me ahead 3-1, and then on hole 8 I took another point with a 3 (3'd the hole all 6 rounds!!) And to top it off, I took one more point on hole 9 to make it a 5-1 win.

Just noticed that the spreadsheet above has Team Ironwood finishing in 6th place. I do believe we finished in 5th, .5 points ahead of Rochester. Making it 4 years in a row Pittsburgh's B team missed the cut by one place, According to Dave O.

I know the last 2 years I was on the B team we missed making the playoffs by 1/2 point!!!!

Grandaddy,

Thanks again for putting on the tournament. Everyone from all three Pittsburgh teams had a great time. Of course we will be back to defend.

While the weekend is still fresh is a good time to reflect and plan ahead, I offer these thoughts...


Finances:

Raise the entry fee to $360/team. The extra 30 ($5/player) won't be noticed and it will give you the money you need to pay for lunches, which is a great idea. you could charge for a cheap lunch as you did in the past and players would not mind.

The payout was disappointing, but I'm glad you published exactly what the costs of running the tournament were. So many times clueless players will rant and rag about how they were ripped off without knowing the first thing about what it takes to run an event. I think a host club should at least break even when running an event, or else why would they want to continue hosting? Perhaps using occasional league nights as fundraisers to cover tournament costs? Can you raise money to cover the costs of putting the tournament on (fees, food and facilities) and then all of the entry fees go directly to the purse? How about a tournament logo disc sold throughout the year as a fundraiser to cover costs?

How about this idea: charging an early registration discount -- $360 before Sept 1, $390 afterwards -- and put the extra money specifically to the purse and medals/ribbons. It might prompt teams to send your their rosters/entry fees earlier and wouldn't that be nice? Teams that don't plan ahead pay the extra cost. This will conservatively net $360 for the purse.

A purse of $4680 (12 teams x $360 =$4320 + $360 in late fees) would payout in cash and hardware roughly: 1st =$1800, 2nd=$1000, 3rd=$600, 4th=$480, 5th=$360, 6th=$240 7th=$120 Advertising the purse will draw more teams to the tournament.

Next year will be the 9th year of the Cup. I hope that in the 10th year we can have a purse that pays out $2000 to the winning team. I'll pledge to sponsor $250 toward tournament expenses in 2008 if you can get 12 teams in the field and payout 100% of entry fees. Let's keep thinking about how to grow the event. An advertised purse will help to bring teams in.

Have a vendor to merch your am field satisfies those am players who get valuable merch. Keep doing it.

Rosters:

Maybe it will always be a last minute thing, but it can get better. Having a flyer to handout at all the Can Am series events beginning in April would help to keep the Cup in the front of people's minds all season long, not just at the end. Hopefully, it will prompt captains to line up commitments earlier. Although it wasn't intentional, maybe Pittsburgh opened Pandora's box with subbing Jay Gobrecht onto our roster for the injured Jerry G0tcher. Jay is not a national spotlight player, but in the MADC he is a quiet storm. He is one of the top Grandmaster players, but competes in the Master and Open divisions as well. Hopefully it will be soon that clubs start recruiting one or two "ringers" from outside of their membership or geographic area for their rosters, and the big name players start showing up at Brown's Farm. Just be sure to hold to requirement of a majority of the team members must be from one club or geographic area. We don't want to lose the local feel of the event.

I like your idea of holding a spot in the field for teams that have been in the tourney before and/or cities that host a Can-Am event. I hope it gets to the point where teams cannot get in the field and last place teams from the previous year are in danger of losing their spot in next year's field. Use the email addresses you collected this year to communicate with these players throughout the year.

Format:

I really believe that pool play is needed for two reasons: accommodate a field of 10 or more teams and to allow an 18-hole medal match. With the exception of losing our tradition of round robin play (everybody plays everybody), pool play with cross-over matches can be ensure that the best teams end up in the medal matches and give more time for an 18-hole medal match at the end and give the players more free/fun time at the farm as well. Rex really has the scoring system wired. He has done a lot of great work to make those spreadsheets link and calculate all of the stats. Thanks for sending them to me. I'm sure you will send them out to all the captains and players as well as post them on canamdiscgolf.org.

Pool play for 10 or more teams would also give more time on Saturday afternoon for teams to socialize, party, swim, have a FR poker tournament, play DDC etc. I am in favor of playing less matches and upping the quality time at the Farm. Two pools of 5 teams should be run with 4 matches and 1 cross over, then one seeding match before the 18-hole Medal round (that is 81 holes of golf!) Two pools with 8 teams each means playing the same or perhaps more golf that currently if you figure two 9-hole cross-over matches and an 18-hole final. Maybe 4 pools of 4 teams with a cross over match with each of the other pools and a final seeding match? I know everybody playing everybody leaves no doubt who the best teams are, but we have to be able to expand the field, and I for one could not attend the tournament if it was a three day event. Rex knows how to make it work.

Want a way to keep more people till the end of the tournament? -- have Red and Blue Ribbon final 9-hole matches for the 5th/6th and the 7/8 teams. If the tournament grows to 16 teams you will want to payout down to the 6th or 7th place and this will give them something to play for. All of these matched could go off on Hole 10 at the same time as the medal matches tee off on Hole 1 just like you did this year with the Am 1s playing together, Am 2s together and so on. The Ribbon matches would be clear of Hole 10 by the time the first Medal match plays that hole and would be finished on 18 in time to watch all of the Medal matches come in. The gallery would swell for the final match to finish and the tournament would have a great ending (not that it wasn't a great ending this year:)

I am in favor of losing the GMs from the roster and having a women's spot on the team. I think the GM/women hybrid has done it's job of making teams able to field 6 players. The sport is growing women players on the local level and having all women (even top pro women) play from shorter tees will make matches competitive. I think we have a winning formula of 6 person rosters -- 2 open, 2 true ams, 1 master and 1 woman. This is very flexible and clubs will be able to field a team if they want to. Knowing that they will not have to play pro GMs will encourage am women to play, as will the chance to play with other women including world champions.

Course:

I think Brown's Farm sets up beautifully for match play. I know the course took a hit this year from the weather, but it was beautiful again. Thank you for giving the little tree in front of #2 basket a haircut. I love current pin positions as they reward risk. New #7 is a better hole now than before. My suggestions for improvements:

Level and lengthen all tee pads and improve footing by adding a skim layer of gravel (not round smooth river gravel, but small sharp edged stone or crushed rock). The ultimate would be to invest in a set of Fly Pads, or some other porous rubber mats. You still have to level the surface underneath, but the crushed rock would do that. This would be cheaper than buying a pair of Bite shoes for every player ;).

Move the Red tee on #2 back a bit to make the mando in play. Paint a perpendicular line on either side of the mando to indicate whether player need to throw from drop zone (red tee?). Make the mando the tree trunks, not the branch on the right-side tree. Is there a ceiling on the mando? perhaps trim inside branches on the mando trees up a bit higher.

Bring back tee for Hole #4 that plays from across the ravine and down the gully to the same pin position. It moves the tee out of the line of sight for approach to #3 green

In general, limb fairway branches and sapling trees (2 in. dia.). Hole 8, 11, 14 especially.


Other:

I've attached my Pittsburgh wrap up fyi and you may publish it on the web site in hopes of spurring more teams for next year.


I'd also encourage you to post the individual team results on the site. Will you be adding a forum to the canamdiscgolf.org website to allow comment and discussion. Please post the content of this email there or let me know where I can post it.

As for the date next year, any weekend is going to cause conflicts but early in September is a good spot.


Thanks to you, Lingus Rex and all the Brown clan for another great event!

J. Gary