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                          RSG-Pittsburgh '02
                            Dave Tutelman
                            April 30, 2002

Plans called for the usual venues, but we were a little nervous. Even
though Thor was present, the forecast sounded like his work was cut out
for him: an adequate Friday followed by a very rainy Saturday and
thunderstorms on Sunday. How did it actually develop? Well, let me begin 
at the beginning -- at least where it began for me...


THURSDAY: ONE-CLUB FIVE-BALL IN THE DARK:

I left the New Jersey shore early Thursday afternoon. My meetings with
Fred outside Philly and Coops in Harrisburg went smoothly. In fact, the
whole ride went very smoothly, and we pulled into the parking lot at the
John Butler House (the B&B on the premises at Butlers Golf Course) just
as it was getting dark. Only one car so far, with Ohio plates. We went
into the house, and said hi to Thor and Joe Dean. 

After unpacking the car, we shot the breeze over beers. Somewhere in the
conversation, Thor mentioned that when he took his boys out for golf, 
he'd go along with a single club (usually a 7- or 8-iron) and play along
that way. Somebody else observed that we had a full moon, and there were
three nice (long, hard) par-four holes right outside the door. About five
minutes later, the five of us were outside with a club apiece -- and
enough balls to play three long holes in the dark. Coops lost a coin toss
to allow a putter in addition to the one club, so we traveled light. But
of course, "Senator" Coops made up the rules and allotted the strokes as 
we went, so it wasn't too much of a setback.

Most took a 7-iron as their one club. I chose a sand wedge because I 
wanted to be sure to hit the ball where I could find it, and because a
full swing with it would give me exactly 100 yards. Also, it's my "go to"
club for my short game. But I was giving up distance to the others.

The moon was indeed full, and the scattered clouds didn't mess much with
the illumination. Even so, you couldn't see the ball in the air. At 
Fred's urging, we developed the habit of being very quiet after anyone 
hit the ball, so we could hear what happened to it. At 100 yards, we
usually had a pretty good idea where my ball went. But 140 and more with
a 7-iron was a different story; we only heard it if it hit something it
shouldn't. It's quite amazing how you can tell an evergreen from a
deciduous tree by it's sound when struck by a golf ball.

The results were actually pretty amazing:
 * The best score was 18. That's 6 strokes per hole, or double-bogey. In
   the dark. With one club. Including putting with that club. Nice work,
   Thor.
 * Nobody had worse than 25, with three of us in the 21-22 range. That
   included a penalty stroke for a lost ball. Which brings us to...
 * Only two balls were lost. Most of us finished with the same ball we
   started with.
 * I heard that at least one golfer did no better over the same four
   holes on Saturday in the daylight, with a full bag.

When we got to the green on the 18th -- which is right outside Butler
House -- Terry Easton, Bill Hogsett, and Gary Hayenga came out and
distracted us as we putted out. They thought we were messing around
practice-putting; they had no idea we were playing a SERIOUS three-hole
match.


FRIDAY: MORE LINDENWOOD THAN PLANNED

Lindenwood is still my favorite venue of the Pittsburgh rota. This year,
I played in a threesome with Joe Dean and Ken Learman. I know Ken from
the Dynacraft clubmakers forum, but never met him in person. The course
was as much fun as ever. 

Neither Ken nor I was playing up to ability, but we each had our share of
good holes. Mine tended to come on the par fives; I parred several of 
them, including the monster right-angle-dogleg-down-the-hill-across-the-
lake on the blue nine. Ken had more than his share of great seven-iron
shots, which we commented on liberally during the round. But come to 
think of it, two of my more amazing shots were seven-irons as well:
 * On the seventh hole on blue, I push-sliced my tee shot into the sixth
   fairway, high above the seventh fairway. Joe called up to me, saying
   the yardage markers suggested I was 220 yards from the green. The
   downhill was nice, but first I had to clear the tall trees separating
   the two fairways. Joe suggested I use my "up-and-over 220 yard club."
   Certain that up-and-over was more important than 220 yards, I hit a
   seven-iron. Very solid, high, long hit. Between the altitude
   difference and a likely bounce on the cart path (there was a scar on
   the ball when I found it), the ball wound up hole-high, about 3 yards
   to the right of the green.
 * My approach shot to hole #1 on red was 7-iron distance. I reminded Ken
   and Joe that you MUST be below the hole on this green, then hit a shot
   that faded onto the green and got some additional "ground fade" toward
   the right-hand pin. Stopped one foot below the hole, for a tap-in
   birdie.

As we teed off on our third nine, the started mentioned that, having paid
for 27 holes, we were entitled to keep playing as long as we wanted. As
we finished the nine, we were hailed by Thor and Terry, heading up to the
executive nine. Lindenwood has an additional nine, made up of par-threes
and a few short par-fours. We thought we had nine players, and figured
we'd go at three threesomes. But Joe Conte decided he had had enough golf
for the day (is there any such thing? :-), so we were left with five
golfers after the first threesome was gone. We played as five. Hey, there
was nobody else on the course, and we were just playing a fun nine. The 
group consisted of Ken, Joe, and me, with George Buechly and Steve Geib.
Joe Conte walked with us, but didn't play.

Nobody was keeping score, shot boldness seemed to be the figure of merit,
and beer was the group's lubricant. I used my new (well, my yard sale) 
lob wedge at every opportunity, something I'd never do in a real round.
We had a blast.

The starter was telling us about the course on the first tee; I got a 
hint of what was to come when I noticed that every alternate phrase was,
"Then you go up the hill." The nine is even more hilly than the rest of 
Lindenwood, meaning there is some serious climbing involved. Not only are
there major ups and downs, but there is a substantial net UP until the
ninth tee. Then the ninth hole is a cliff, followed by another near cliff
from the green down to the clubhouse.

Dinner was at the usual mall Rt 19 and I-70. But our intended chow house,
the Texas Roadhouse had an hour's wait and TGI Friday's only 20 minutes,
so that made our decision for us. I don't know that we finished any 
sooner (real slow service) but we were seated and drinking beer much 
quicker. We gave the customary hard time to Jamie, our waitress; in fact,
Coops personally gave her enough of a hard time for all of us. Well, not
really a hard time, but he is not known for ordering what is on the menu;
he'd rather test the staff's ability to improvise.

Coops and Steve Metzler stayed behind after we finished dinner. The over-
under on Coops' arrival back at Butler House was 2:30AM, and he beat that
by half an hour. Unfortunately, he discovered after Metz dropped him off
that he didn't have a key to the house. He tried:
 a) All the ground floor windows. No luck!
 b) Chris' phone number. (Chris is the rental agent for the House.) No
    answer, left a message. We heard plenty about that from Chris the
    next day.
 c) Waking someone to let him in. That worked.


SATURDAY: ARE THEY CRAZY... OR ARE WE?

By Friday night, the dire weather predictions for Saturday had tamed
somewhat. No more heavy rain all day, now just partly cloudy with rain at
night. Apparently it was now common knowledge that Thor was in 
Pittsburgh.

Saturday dawned bright and early. 
Brighter than predicted; it was a nice, sunny day. 
Earlier than predicted; we had to wait several minutes for the Butlers 
restaurant to open for breakfast. But at least we didn't have to wait the
hour that we did Friday; we'd never have made our tee time if we had.

The big surprise at Butlers was that the new (new last year, anyway) nine
was being played as #10-18 of the Lakeside course. Last year, it was 
played as #8-16, which allowed continuous routing from hole to hole. 
Played as #10-18, it required finishing back to the club-house, then 
hiking more than a half mile uphill to the tenth tee -- not to mention an
even longer walk back to the clubhouse from the eighteenth green. Are 
they insane? Or maybe they were just trying to sell more cart fees -- 
though the course as set up last year was already the hardest to walk I 
had ever seen.

We started on the Woodside course. I played the morning round with Thor,
Coops, and Terry. We played a hi-lo game with rotating partners, changing
every six holes so we partnered with each other member of the foursome
for six holes. Coops was again adjusting strokes as we went, so I didn't
worry about what I needed on a hole and just played. Not well, but not
terribly either. I had a couple of disastrous holes in what was otherwise
a pretty good round. That included pars on both par-5s on the back nine
(with a sand save on #10) and almost saving par after hitting a tree with
my drive on long, par-4 #18 being only 100 yards off the tee and in the
woods. I also had an interesting adventure on #13, the downhill par-3
overlooking the Youghiogheny River valley. My tee shot was a low, sculled
slice with an 8-iron, that hit the fairway well short of the green. It
bounded toward, then through, the fairway bunker, and dribbled onto the
green. For a while, it looked like I'd have less than 20 feet left for
birdie; but it continued to dribble across the green and off the back --
where it drops straight down about 7 feet. I was left with a pitch that
needed 7 feet of altitude in the first 3 feet of forward travel, to a
green that sloped away -- and if it ran off on that side, there was
nothing but steep downhill and woods till the Youghiogheny. The yard sale
lob wedge was up to the job, and left me with a 2-foot par putt -- which
I missed. :-(

The afternoon round was completely chaotic; nobody knew who they were 
playing with until they teed off. I wound up in the last group, with 
Terry and Brent Hutto. Brent's leg had cramped up in the morning round, 
so he rode with me (I was pretty tired already, and had no intention of 
walking the back nine on Lakeside, especially not with the new routing). 
Brent limped the whole front nine, and didn't play the back at all. But 
he was hitting his new nine-wood very well, and had a great five-wood 
(or maybe three-wood) tee shot on #7.

It was a BIG MISTAKE to be in the last group. Why? Well, Thor was in the
first group, and the rain predicted for the night was moving in early --
or maybe we were just playing late. Anyway, Thor was 3-4 holes ahead of
us, and Terry and I got rained on the last five holes or so. My game had
completely deserted by the final nine, and I wasn't even keeping score any
more, just trying to hit an occasional good shot.

When we returned to Butler House, the great debate was on: Where should
we eat? I wasn't the only one who was firmly opposed to Molnars ("The
Sausage Place", where everything was either greased or fried -- even the
veggie platter was thickly breaded and fried). We eventually settled on
a recommended place -- I have no idea who recommended it -- the Boston
Waterfront. "Boston Waterfront" in the hills around Pittsburgh? Well, it
turns out that the name is literally accurate; it's in Boston, PA, and
it's on the banks of the Youghiogheny River. It also turns out that the
food is really outstanding, and they have enough good beer to keep the
Molnars crowd satisfied. I'm sure we'll eat there again.

After slogging three cars through the rain to get to Boston Waterfront,
we discovered we had left Coops at Butler House. ("What we have here is a
failure to communicate.") Well, the communications started at that point.
It took almost 10 cell-phone calls and another round-trip by Bill 
Hogsett, but Coops did get to eat at Boston Waterfront that night.


SUNDAY: VIRTUAL THOR

The rain was hard as ever when we awoke. The windshield wipers got a
workout all the way to Cedarbrook. For the first time, I found lots of
parking spots right near the clubhouse -- and for the first time, we
really needed it. Even with the umbrellas open, we were getting wet. The
course looked really soaked. The practice greens were underwater, and 
several fairways visible from the clubhouse were dotted with small lakes.
It didn't look like golf today. The pro wasn't sending us out, but said
he'd make a decision one way or the other before 9AM. (Our tee times had
been for 7:45.) We sat and watched The Golf Channel and The Weather 
Channel. What was on The Weather Channel had us seriously pessimistic.
There might be some sort of clearing to the north (maybe 100 miles), but
except for that there was nothing but rain for hundreds of miles in every
direction.

We milled around until 8:30, when Coops walked in and said to Fred and
me, "Gentlemen, let's go and play golf." We looked at him as if he were
insane. Then he explained/announced that the pro had just said he'd make
his next decision at noon, but nobody was golfing before then. That was
enough for us. Most of us had to hit the road for home before mid-
afternoon, and a round that started at noon would not let us do that. So
we hit the road before 9AM.

Once in the car, Coops explained his choice of words. He wanted to head
east looking for weather more conducive to golf. Yeah, right! The whole
of Pennsylvania and Ohio were green on the weather channel -- rain all
around. Still, he said, if it were clear on the Turnpike from Breezewood
to Harrisburg, then just maybe... Sounds to me like a job for Thor -- but
he was headed the other way, back to Ohio.

But perhaps a "virtual Thor" was traveling with us. The rain seemed to 
let up before Breezewood, and by the time we reached Harrisburg we hadn't
seen rain for over an hour. As we approached the Harrisburg exits, Coops
mentioned this course had heard about and was meaning to check out, so he
phoned them for directions, and we went over. Summary:
 * Great course! (The name is Armitage.) It's a much better walking
   course than Cedarbrook, IMHO.
 * Low prices (they gave us a bargain because of the lousy weather -- but
   it didn't rain for the rest of the day).
 * Not a busy course today, so we played 18 in just under three and a
   half hours.
 * The sun came out by the seventh hole, and it was GORGEOUS for the rest
   of the round.
 * Real nice lunch: sandwiches ("SandWedges" on the fairly funny Caddy
   Shack theme menu) on the deck overlooking the 18th green. Plenty of
   sun, breeze, and golf all around.

After we had had lunch and got back in the car, the clouds and 
threatening weather returned. I got back to New Jersey just in time for
a jarring set of thunderstorms.

It appears that the virtual Thor was with all the RSG-ers who ventured to
golf courses on their way home.

 * The REAL Thor noticed that the rain had stopped by the time they
   reached Lindenwood, so he and Joe played nine there before continuing
   on to Columbus.
 
 * Mark Georg and Steve Metzler were experiencing the morning after the
   night before, and slept in. By the time they were up and aspirined, it
   was after 10AM and the rain had stopped. They drove over to Cedarbrook
   and played 18 -- the pro having relented and opened around 10:30. They
   related sunshine, surprisingly well-drained greens, and a 3:20 round.

Mark, thanks for making the arrangements.
Had a great time.
BTW, don't forget to reserve Butler House for next year!