The 2023 Awards and Elections Banquet was well attended by 56 members and guest at the FJ Buffet. This was the first time since the shutdowns of the pandemic that we able to resume our annual Banquet. President Darryl Inouye started the evening by appointing John Sturges as emcee as our VP Waimun Yee was stuck in Denver. After renewing memberships and dues for 2023 we were sent out into the Buffet to bring back dinner. Then we were given ballots to vote in a new board for 2023 and thanked the members of the old board for their service.
The Awards segment of the evening recognized trophy winners from both the 2021 and 2022 seasons. See the slideshow below for the winners.
John Sturges raffled off various door prizes that included golf wedges, GPS Golf Buddy, Designer Head Covers and dozens of Golf Balls among the many items. The 50/50 Draw found new wealth for Skylar Felton, Denise Hutchins and Dale Okazaki.
A good time was had by all as you may gather from the slideshow and now we kickoff another season with the PCGC.
2022 Club Championship
The Club Championship came down to a tiebreaker where 1st round leader Skyler Felton was caught on the second day by Ryan Oliver with a net 66 and prevailed based on the a better second round score. Clark Louie held off the Senior Division and secured his hardware for 2022. Shigeo Fukushima posted 163 to hold off Yoshio Matsuzaki by one shot to take home the Lawrence Lee Championship Trophy. The weather was nice for both days and after the Sunday round club members went to Mike Parsons house to celebrate Championship Weekend.
2022 Match Play Championship
The Final Four of Match Play was contested at Mint Valley GC in Longview, Washington. They are famous for the Mint Valley Burger and John Sturges convinced the board to sponsor a lunch for the members. We had Laville Fendors vs Carl Louie and Ed Olivier vs Gunar Meneks to determine who would make it to the Finals. Laville was 1 up going into #17, but his tee shot found the water and Carl took advantage to tie it up going into #18. Having to give a stroke Carl took an agressive line on the tee shot and found the fairway bunker. Laville played it safe and found the fairway and kept the pressure on Carl to win the hole outright and to go 1 UP for the match and a spot in the Finals. Gunar was not only down 1 but also had to give up a stoke on the final hole, which put the pressure of making Par or better to keep hope alive. Gunar did manage to make his par, but Ed capitalized with a bogey to secure a 1 UP victory to meet Laville in the next round for the Crown.
The Finals was contested at Heron Lakes Greenback between Laville Fendors and Ed Olivier. Laville put the match in dormie at Hole #15 and with a timely par at Hole #17 the match with over with the score of 3 &1.
The Consolation Match for 3rd place was contested at McNary GC where it came down to the 18th all square. Carl and Gunar both made double bogey 7 at the Par 5, but since Carl had to give a stoke he ended up losing the Match.
Congratulations to Laville Fendors for becoming the 2022 Match Play Champion.
2022 Ralph Moe Memorial
The Ralph Moe Memorial landed on one of the hottest weekends of the summer as temperatures in the mid 90’s was a good test of the mental game. We had a three way tie on top of the leaderboard with Net Scores of 69. Congratulations to June Hall who used the back nine tiebreaker of 34.5 to take home the hardware and happened to play with the competitors she beat out in her group namely Hank Lawrence and Cherie Anderson. The rest of the field was finding ways to beat the heat and didn’t put too much pressure on June Hall.
2022 Founders Cup
The Founders Cup started at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club which was gearing up for the upcoming LIV Golf event in July. A forecast of showers turned into a downpour that made for soggy course conditions. Bobby Lee should not have anything to complain about with a net 69 and leader in the clubhouse despite the weather. Then Skylar Felton comes in with a net 63 to take over the lead and something for Bobby to talk about. The 2nd round at Stone Creek brought a perfect day of sun at Stone Creek and Skylar Felton holds on to take home the Founders Cup. The PCGC sponsored a Burger BBQ for the members after the round and it was the perfect day on the deck to have a club social event.
Ron Eng Memorial Trophy at Salem Golf Club
A beautiful day of 70 degrees welcome the PCGC to the Salem Golf Club for competition for the Ron Eng Memorial Trophy. A net score of 72 was the low mark of the day as John Sturges won the tiebreaker with a better back nine to hold off Dale “1b” Okazaki. There were many first timers to play Salem GC for some of our members and guests, as the layout confused a couple of groups that ended up at the wrong tee box and was sent back to the right one. The patches of white clover on the course helped camouflaged some golf balls and it may have been a better idea to use a colored ball instead. The round also served as the first qualifying round for the Match Play Bracket and the next opportunity will be at our outing at Pumpkin Ridge.
Winter Golf at Elk Ridge
The weather watch for the Columbia Gorge was a forecast for snow in April. As Sunday approached we had 9 groups on standby in case of a snow storm, but it was just a few showers in front of our drive east to Carson, Washington. We did have to brave the cold wind and then a shower mixed with snow challenged us on the opening holes, but later settled into a pretty nice day. There were some naturally insulated golfers that didn’t need winter gear and actually still wore shorts, but some of us were bundled up and ready for the slopes. The restaurant was closed so the groups came into the clubhouse to warm up and watched the Masters as the rest of the club finished their round. It was a fun day for many of the members who bought remote control electric golf carts and ran them around the course. Clark Louie still needs to read the owners manual for his unit, as the guy in the Pro Shop pointed out that someone has a runaway golf cart outside and we realized Clark must have been playing with his remote in his pocket.
Three Rivers Golf Course
We had 28 players drive up to Longview, Washington in spite of the rising gas prices to enjoy a warm spring day of golf. The course was having a tournament and we teed off about 15 minutes behind our original assigned tee time. The pace was set with the groups on the course and overall our club kept within reasonable time. Rian Kindig must have watched a bit of MacGyver to engineer his repair job on his pushcart at the first tee. It was a beautiful sight to see the golf ball get forward roll instead of being stuck in the mud last week. Joe Ito took full advantage as he had the Low Net of 68 and Kelvin Onchi had a Low Gross of 78. Kay Yamanaka hit all the greens for the Par 3’s to earn the maximum 4 tickets for the next drawing. We all gathered at the 18th green as the later groups finished and there was just a little pressure on those putts as all eyes of the gallery were watching.
2022 Season Opening Day – March 20, 2022
We had almost 8 groups for our “Opening Day” outing at Glendoveer East. The weather held off during our round of golf as a late system was coming later in the day. The conditions of the course showed there was quite a bit of rain during the week as it was muddy and sloppy in some areas. This made the uphill climbs more challenging and downhill trek a little more cautious as to not take a tumble.
We welcomed back Shige Fukushima as he moved back to join us for the 2022 season from Hawaii. I’m sure after a round in the mud he may reconsider going back to the “Island Life”. Hank Lawrence showed up sporting a full beard as the “mask optional” rules allowed us to see some faces. He either looks like a lost Leprechaun or one of the guys who lives in a blue tent.
The “Time Cards” returned great results for the first outing of the year as Pace of Play was good considering the course conditions. The first group finished at 4:20 and the last group at 4:37 with an average 9 hole time of 2:11. Kudos to everyone for a great job.
The lone Par 3 in the back nine had a nasty pin placement that had anything running past the hole would end up over 40 feet below the hole. John Sturges had a fun 5 putt and warned oncoming groups of the danger that lurked up ahead. Apparently Forrest Denno didn’t receive the memo as he broke the record and had himself a 7 putt.