RSG-Ohio 2006 Rob Pyle Musings and Ramblings on the events of the past weekend . . . 1 There are few things nicer to hear for a hack like me than when a scratch golfer watches you hit a ball and says "Butter" ( I hope he meant it). Thanks, Tex. 2 There are few things worse that can happen than to hit someone with a golf ball. On the final green of the MPM round, I hit long and right into the crowd and hit Dave Sneddon on the head. Luckily, it was on the bounce and everything came out well, but it was a real shock to walk up to the green and see people holding his head and looking into his eyes. After a consultation with his lawyer, we settled for a pint at dinner. 3 MPM was a blast!!! See below for the gory, boring details. 3.1 Stymies are very cool. We had two stymies and both Hudson McVay and John Griffin nearly sunk their stymie chips. 4 Golfing with one of my best friends, his brother and Thor on Muirfield Village was a perfect way to spend an afternoon. Of course, being able to get us out on Muirfield puts Phil and Andy on lots of people's best friends lists! Thanks again, Andy. 5 Within four seconds of meeting Kelly Newell, she had a profound effect on my RSG life. She misunderstood my introduction and thought I had introduced myself as RockPile, and the rest is history. 6 "Shut up and get in the Minivan!" Stemmer and Sir Plow are bad, bad people. "Really!" 7 Super Dave was pretty sure he was unlikely to medal in the Tournament round or the other special prizes, so he went ahead and invented one for himself. He was the proud winner of the "Closest to the dead fish without going in" award on #2. 8 There's nothing wrong with a three minute nap as part of a pre-shot routine! Except, when Thor looked back from behind the green on #18 at Stinky Links and thought something was horribly wrong with me laying out in the middle of the fairway. He tells me that just before he started running out to me, he noticed that Dalecki was standing right next to me not looking concerned at all. Of course, Mike had a pretty good round going and didn't want to be distracted. 9 Playing with low handicappers all weekend was a real treat, watching them do very little spectacularly, but also very little very poorly, and a good short game gets them nicely into the 70s and low 80s. It was good to see close up. 10 RSG events (now having 2 RSG-Wisconsins and 1 RSG-Ohio) are golf and camaraderie at its purest form. Thor, you Rock _____________________The final MPM match____________________ MPM was a blast!!! As a newbie to RSG-Ohio, I had a bit of trouble arranging a match and ended up playing against Hudson McVeigh, whose 7 index was all but guaranteed to clean my clock (as a 16 who hadn't broken 100 the whole weekend). I went to the first tee really hoping just to be able to play past the fifth hole. After losing the first two holes, I was pretty sure that was just what was going to happen. Then a near eagle on three kind of woke me up and after five we were all square. I was about to lose the sixth (I think) because Hudson had a three or four footer for the hole, but then John Griffin (my World partner in his own match with Terry Easton) just missed his putt and it curled in front of Hudson's ball for a perfect stymie!!! I videoed Hudson's valiant attempt to chip in which burned the left edge. When someone helps me out, the video will be available to see. The next hole saw Hudson get a really bad bounce; and all of a sudden I was one up with two to play!!! I played decently on the eighth and was happy to concede Hudson's putt for a half to go to the ninth Dormie 1. When Super Dave came out to the ninth tee to see what the situation was, I was stunned to find that my victory would earn a half for the entire Ohio versus the World competition. The yardage was a bit confusing, and I ended up with a bit too much club, pushed the tee shot right and got a nice bounce off of the head of an innocent bystander/teammate and had a chip from ten or so yards off of the green. I now had 30 people surrounding me as I lined up the chip. Tex came over and gave some pointed non-Captain advice: "just get it on the green". I think I was more scared of Tex than the chip, so I blind-squirrelled a cross-handed chunk to the middle of the green. Two putts later, and the match was over! Hudson was a great opponent, but I think the MPM gods wanted to completely hook a newbie and they dropped a match like this into my lap! I can't wait for my next Match Play Madness experience. MPM Rocks! RockPile Rob Pyle Ph: (734) 481-8734 Ford Motor Company Supervisor, Core Fuel Pump Design Fax: (734) 484-8828 Rawsonville Plant, Room 2012 rpyle1@ach-llc.com