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.

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.

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.

We had 8 groups at OGA GC looking for the last chance to get their name on a trophy for the 2021 season. After a hard rain fall on Saturday that even cancelled the LPGA event in West Linn we found OGA to be in good shape. The greens were still firm and ran very smooth in the practice area. With cloudy skies we teed off and was hoping to avoid the forecasted showers around the “Noon Hour”.  As we made our way to the Back Nine we saw some sunny skies and was optimistic that we could get lucky with the weather. Then dark clouds appeared in the horizon and a heavy dousing had groups seeking shelter from Mother Natures version of the “Bucket Challenge”.  While standing under a tree Kay Yamanaka witnessed a pool of water form a lake around his ball sitting on the green. While this may have thrown some off their game with the delay and distraction of a wet course we find Mr. Steven Chan still smiling with a Net 66 to capture the hardware.

Day One of the 2021 Club Championship welcomed 12 groups to Heron Lakes Great Blue. At check in we were treated to goodies from Yoshioka’s Kitchen (Miriam & Mark), as zucchini bread and cookies were individually bagged for our enjoyment on the course. Carl Louie set the bar as his Net 67 and Gross 80 topped the leaderboard heading into Sunday.

Day Two at Eastmoreland surprised the early groups with some heavy rain showers that also softened some of the greens. Tim Rodrigues had put himself in a pickle with a Day One net of 87, but a career round at Eastmoreland got him back in the hunt with a Net 60 for a two day total of 147. Shane Starr and defending Club Champion Gunar Meneks rolled in next with a 146 total to take the lead. Bill Chan was having a good round but a 7 at the 17th Par 3 dampened his hopes with a Day Two Net 73 and tournament score of 145 as the new leader. As the final groups started to come in we found only Waimun Yee doing well enough to contend, but his triple bogey at 18 put him in a tie at 145. All eyes from the gallery was looking for Carl Louie coming down the fairway and word spread he was not having a good day. We witnessed a chunked chip at the green for a double bogey to finish with a 147. Bill Chan wins the tiebreaker with a better second round score to get his name etched on the Club Championship and Senior Trophy.

The Lawrence Lee Championship Trophy found Michael Yee recovering from a bad first day and posted a 78 to set the bar at 164. Then it came down to the last group of the day as Bruce Locke found himself 8 strokes back of Yoshio Matsuzaki at the turn. Then the door was cracked open as double bogey’s at #13 & #14 by Matsu flipped the switch for Bruce to go into “grind mode”. With the gallery witnessing a beautiful 2nd shot to the finishing hole and a clutch birdie putt we have a new leader at 163. It came down to a five foot putt for Matsu to claim the hardware and with nerves of steel he drains it to post 162 for the Victory.

The typical wind was prevalent at Tri-Mountain as we had 9 groups come out to play the Modified Stableford format. We welcomed Kelvin Onchi, Jerry Williams, Bill Chan and Joe Ito who haven’t been out with our club in quite awhile.  As the rest of the field was trying to collect enough points to get to positive numbers the main focus was on the Match Play between Mike Parsons vs William Quach for the Championship. It was a series of runs by both players as William took a 2 up lead at the turn and fell back to even after 12 and found himself down 2 after 15, but found another gear to win the last 3 holes to take the match 1 UP. Congratulations to William Quach as the 2021 Match Play Champion.

Meriwether National Golf Club is showing signs that a water shortage is going to challenge golf courses to choose areas for “brown outs”.  The greens were in great shape and ran fairly fast as Tim Rodrigues can attest to at Hole #3 where his putt rolled all the way off the green and into a back bunker. The first group of the day encountered a pair of golfers late for their tee time and offered Bob Lee’s group to go ahead, but after hearing his foursome was the first of 6 groups they reconsidered and teed off. Phil and Tim literally had a “field day” as they looked for errant tee shots and came back with handful of balls each time they searched in the hay. There were plenty of “perfect scores” if you were competing in the Olympics as 8 players recorded 10’s on there scorecard. The top 3 medalist netted under par:  Gold – Laville Fendors (67), Silver – Carl Louie (70) and Bronze – Toshio Sakuma (71). 

A field of 44 players were treated to “goodie bags” decorated with dinosaurs to help Dale Okazaki celebrate his 60th. Oki was also decorated with beads and a birthday tiara to let us all know he made it “Over the Hill”.  The birthday boy was gifted with the honor to draw the winners for our Hit the Green Raffle from both the Eastmoreland and Mint Valley outings. He picked April Okazaki’s ticket as that only means there will be a cocktail waiting for him at the 19th hole.

Bruce Locke made his par putt at our first Par 3 and reached in the hole and found two balls. As it turns out it belonged to Mike Parsons as he was so focused on his Match Play that he forgot to retrieve his ball. In the Match Play playoff it only took one hole for Cherie Anderson to dismiss Forrest Denno and moved her attention to Mike Parsons. The match was even after 12 holes and then Parsons took advantage of a few bad holes down the stretch by Cherie to win 3 & 1. Mike Parson moves into the Championship Match against William Quach and Cherie Anderson will face Kay Yamanaka for the 3rd place consolation prize.

Our guests had a great time with their respective groups. Joe Kim was able to hang out with his buddy Bruce Locke along with Laville Fendors and Mark Chang. The group enjoyed some fun highlights of Bruce making an “eagle” and a near miss for a second one, and a errant tee shot at Hole #8 by Joe Kim that stayed in play found redemption in a great 2nd shot that resulted in a “birdie”.  Tony McNeil got the “boy band” pairing of John Sturges and the Vongthongthip brothers who constantly stopped to take selfies to post for their social media fans.

The Greenback usually yields some real low scores and we would have guessed it would take shooting Dale’s age to win. The low score was Net 68 by both Kay Yamanaka and Steven Chan followed by 6 players at Net 70. Michael Yee had the Low Gross of the day with 74 and not too far behind with Gross 76 was Yoshio Matsuzaki.

It was a great sight to have the PCGC members gather under the tent to celebrate Dale’s birthday with shots and beers without the worries of masks and social distancing.

A perfect day for golf brought aboard an extra group for our outing at Mint Valley in Longview, WA. On the drive to the course it was refreshing to see the locals able to celebrate the holiday with a festival in the park. We had some members that were playing the course for the first time and found the layout to be very enjoyable. We took advantage of a Summer Golf Bundle Special that the course was offering that included a sleeve of Pro V1’s that made everyone a winner before we even teed off. Kevin Lee has been finding the leader board lately and finally finds himself on top with a Net 66. A small group didn’t have to get back to town for a BBQ stayed to ordered The “Moe” burger with fries that drew rave reviews. In Match Play William Quach had 3 birdies in his round and the most timely one on the last hole to close out Kay Yamanaka 2UP to move on to the Finals. Mike Parsons will be involved in a piggy back match with Forrest Denno and Cherie Anderson to determine who will get one step closer to the Championship.

A Historic Heat Wave turned the challenge for the Ralph Moe Memorial Trophy into a game of Survivor as the temperature reached 111 degrees. We had 8 groups of brave (or some may consider crazy) golfers start the day with the temperature already at 80 tee off for the trophy tournament. Many came ready with frozen water bottles and others taking the extra step in bringing a portable fan and even cooling misters. There were few complaints about too many trees at Eastmoreland as the shade was the place to be most of the round.

Congratulations to our newest member Deb Dalenberg as her Net 72 was good enough to get her named etched on the Ralph Moe Memorial trophy. There were many scores that reached into the triple digits as these players took “Beat the Heat” literally and tried to score higher than the temperature for the day.

Summer is here as the 90 degree day made riding a cart a smart decision. It sure kept the beverage cart girl busy as the drinks continued to flow throughout the course. One player claimed to have consumed at least 5 Gatorades. Brandon Vanderberg brought his daughter out to spend a special day with daddy and maybe be his inspiration for his Match against Kay Yamanaka. As it turns out Kay had no problem beating Brandon 5 & 3 in front of his little girl. Jay Lee suffered the same fate of a 5 & 3 defeat to William Quach as back to back birdies at #12 & #13 destroyed any hopes of a comeback. Clark Louie down 1 going into the par 3 #17 had his chance as Mike puts his tee shot in the water, but he follows him in the splash zone. Most the time we would still have our money on Clark as he does have some amazing scrambling skills, but he ends up with a 6 and Mike walks away with a 5 to take down the match 2 & 1. The match with Cherie Anderson vs Forrest Denno was squared after 18 holes as Cherie makes a bogey against Forrest’s double bogey to force a playoff at the next round. Lek brought his son Eli out and he actually teed it up with dad. Michael Yee saw Eli’s swing and it was actually pretty nice considering he has the Vongthongthip DNA, and gave him some wise advice: Don’t copy your dad’s swing and you will be fine, I definitely don’t copy my dad.

The PCGC rolled onto Wildwood Golf Course dressed in a sea of red in honor of Glen Lee. A forecast of showers turned into a steady rain for most of the day as 8 teams tried their best to stay dry and competitive. There were cups that were overflowing with water and puddles developing all over the greens that made those “birdies” a little more elusive than normal. There were 2 groups waiting at the #14 tee box as Team Lek used 2 of their Mulligans to save a par with their 9th putt attempt. This iced Darryl Inouye as he stood on the tee box getting soaked as his team needed his tee shot for this final Par 3.

We had 3 teams finish with a score of 67 and had to go to a card off to determine a winner:

3rd Place – Team Sturges 67 , Back Nine 34

2nd Place – Team Matsu 67, Back Nine 33, #1 HDCP Hole -PAR, #2 HDCP Hole -PAR

1st Place – Team Kindig 67, Back Nine 33, #1 HDCP Hole – PAR, #2 HDCP Hole – BIRDIE

 2021 Glen Lee Memorial Winner: Rian Kindig, Laville Fendors, Terry Emard and Tim Rodrigues

Wildwood has adopted the legendary Big Foot as their mascot as the elusive opportunities to get a photo of Sasquatch is rare, which is just about the odds of capturing Dale Okazaki in a rain jacket (check out the photo in the gallery).

A marine layer hovered over Stone Creek that made for a chilly day, and the threat of an afternoon shower kept everyone bundled up. We once again had 12 groups for the 2nd round of the Founders Cup and the 1st round of the Match Play Bracket. Among our guest was Curtiss Chin from Seattle who came to visit Patrick Chin as they have not seen each other for over a year due to the pandemic. Everyone checked in and got a ticket for a club sponsored Burger at the 19th hole and range ticket to a range that was limited to 175 yards due to heavy damage from the winter storm.

Mike Parsons was involved in a match with June Hall in Bracket play and grouped also with the leader Jeff Kaneshige carrying a 2 stroke lead for the Founders Cup. Jeff made a par at #16 to hold a one shot advantage over Parsons, but mistakes by both players at the next hole with a quad and triple recorded respectively resulted in a winner take all for the 18th. As both players walked off the final hole with a bogey and a 2 day total of Net 135, the tiebreaker of a 2nd round Net 70 makes Mike Parson the winner of the Founders Cup.

The top two seeds were upset by the play in seeds as #16 Kay Yamanaka oust #1 John Sturges 7 & 6, and #2 June Hall new to our Match Play Bracket fell to #15 Mike Parsons 3 & 2 in a well fought battle. There won’t be a repeat winner this year as #4 Rian Kindig falls to newcomer #13 William Quach 6 & 5. Check the 2021 Match Play – Round One for complete results.

Chef DJ from Stone Creek had fresh off the grill burgers ready for us at the 19th hole as we settled in the warm confines of the banquet facilities. The big screen TV was broadcasting the PGA Championship and to the delight of us golfers over 50, we were witness to the historic win by Phil Mickelson. Since we were not able to have our annual banquet earlier this year we took this opportunity to host an Awards Ceremony for our 2020 winners. Laville Fendors presented the trophies as President Darryl Inouye and VP Waimun Yee failed to step up to the plate. Check out our Hall of Fame page for past winners and the slide show below for our recent champions.

There was a feel of normalcy as KP payouts and prizes for the Founders Cup were distributed. Once again if you were able to beat Carl “cutline” Louie you probably cashed as you can see on the leaderboard.  The Skins pot was very rewarding as there was only 2 Skins from A Flight and 5 Skins from B Flight. In the Hit the Green raffle draw for Pumpkin Ridge Michael Yee claims the A Flight and potential new member Deb Dalenberg takes the B Flight.

A beautiful sunny day welcomed 12 groups of the PCGC to Pumpkin Ridge for the first round of the Founders Cup.  For those that may not know Bruce Locke from the local area, you may recognize him from the series “Man in the High Castle” or back in the day on the big screen movie RoboCop 3.  April Okazaki introduce Mr. Locke to her guest as “Bruce Lee” and proving his acting skills he took his stance for “Enter the Dragon”.

Pumpkin Ridge was in tremendous shape as the fairway was cut real tight and the greens were running faster than anything we have seen this year. Jeff Kaneshige posted an impressive Net 63 as he noted this was only the second time he has played this year. The leaderboard has six golfers scoring in the 60’s and plenty of competitors that can make a run at Stone Creek to challenge the “Ice Man”.

The Match Play Bracket is complete as Mike Parsons (net 65) gets spot 15 and thanks to a back nine of a Gross 39 Kay Yamanaka (net 69) gets spot 16. You can find the complete bracket match up by clicking the link or going to the results page.

After the round the patio was a popular place to hang out and relive the golf adventures of the day and settling all the side bets.

We were treated to a sunny day in the Columbia Gorge as the weather forecast for showers were less than a misting. Elk Ridge was in great shape and if you could figure out the greens you could score well. John Sturges got his short stick going as he was bogey free from the 8th hole on and even captured 2 “Birdies” along the way. His Gross Score of 74 earned him the top spot in the Match Play Brackets and GHIN rewarded him with a ESR (Exceptional Score Reduction) to lower his handicap. There were quite a bit of movement for the Qualifying Scores for Match Play and when the dust settled the “Cutline” landed at Net 76. There is a three way tie for the 15th and 16th spots for the Bracket and this will be determined at Pumpkin Ridge in a few weeks as Mike Parsons, Kay Yamanaka and Tim Rodrigues will playoff.

Salem Golf Club hosted 10 groups from the PCGC to compete for the first piece of hardware of the season in the Ron Eng Memorial Trophy. The weather was perfect as short sleeves and shorts were worn by most the field. We were reminded of the destruction of the winter storm a couple of months ago as there were piles of debris scattered across the golf course.  The course was setup with Sunday Pin Placements that challenged you if you were on the wrong side of the hole, as the fast downhill looks was a 3 putt waiting to happen. Hank Lawrence almost cashed in big from the Hole in One Club as his tee shot at Hole #12 was stuck pretty tight. Congratulation to Rian Kindig as he was in the final group and took down the leader in the clubhouse with a Net 68 to get his name etched on the trophy.

Match Play Qualifer

The current cutline from the 1st round of the Match Play Qualifying is at Net 79 (see the event results page for current standings). Elk Ridge will be another chance to improve on your score to get into the tournament or move up in the seeding bracket.

We had 27 golfers make the trip to Longview, Washington for a day of golf. A malfunctioning railroad crossing delayed many golfers from getting to the course early as the law abiding Oregonians patiently waited for the train to come. The “locals” knew better and told us that happens all the time and to just look both ways before going across.  That little bit of local knowledge allowed us to make our tee times.

The course had great drainage as always and we actually found extra yardage from the forward roll from our shots. A cold wind and possible showers was enough incentive for Clark Louie to upgrade to a fully covered cart. It was a great call as we also used the cart at the end of the round as a shelter to do our scoring as the late afternoon rain came. In fact the 18th green developed a river that ran right through the hole and off the green. I’m sure that will be the excuse Lek Vongthongthip will use to explain his “Three (Rivers) Putt”.

Patrick Chin was in the second group and set the bar high for KP at Hole #3 that played at 106 yards as he almost got himself a Hole in One. As a consolation prize he walked away with a prized “birdie”.

The first drawing for our Hit the Green raffle by Bill Chan rewarded Carl Louie for “A” Flight and Celia Chan drew our potential new member Toshi Sakuma for the “B” Flight.