Sundry Photos from CoupleBuckle 2017

Fountain Point

Fountain Point

Cheese Cave near T.C.

Hurand Family cottage

Above video of Straus teeing off

CoupleBuckle 2017

Arbuckle. The word evokes a wide range of thoughts. A defrocked Hollywood actor from the 20’s. That’s Fatty. A stop on I-5 in the Central Valley of California. The town itself. And of course a golf tournament whose eponymous Cup is celebrating its twentieth year in existence. So why after all these years would the participants change the name. Arbuckle? Nah, this year it became CoupleBuckle.

CoupleBuckle? That’s right. Like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the Augusta National Golf Club and the Marines, our formerly male-only organization invited women. Sure this year they were observers, but in the future, as bodies get more broken down or who knows, if they take up the game; we could someday indeed see a truly mixed event. But 2017 was the year of CoupleBuckle. And in 2017 there was still a golf tournament to be played over 54 holes in Northern Michigan by the four (male) Arbucklians.

For the first time since 2004 there was a repeat winner as reigning champion Peter Straus put on a dominating performance to win the 2017 event. The die was cast early on as Straus birdied the second hole and never trailed, though Stanley Pesick did catch him at the end of day one and actually recorded a lower net, 87-73, to Straus’ 89-73.

The same two matched shots for the first five holes on day two, but then Pesick’s recovery from recent knee surgery and the resultant lack of playing time caught up with him and he fell back. He was plainly rusty and was unable to fashion a repeatable swing.

Rick Last, the Little Cat, simply put, had a tough time of it. After a great drive on the opening hole, the Cat found his own personal kitty litter box, the sand, on his second shot and in essence never got out. A snowman (8) on hole number one was more than a bad omen, for it presaged continued problems with the sand throughout the three-day event.  Too much time spent in the cat box spelled disaster for the diminutive feline and what a pity it was because his tee shots have never been better or longer.

That left the Badman himself, Ron Braun, as Straus’ lone challenger. Granted Straus led Braun by five at the final turn on Thursday but a terrible seven by Straus at ten, compared to Braun’s bogey five left the cartmates in a duel. Straus gained a stroke back on eleven then they each went bogey, par, par, bogey on the next four holes. Sixteen, though did Braun in as Straus picked up two more strokes with a par.  The rest was fairly academic. Nonetheless “Down the middle Ron” as his fellow suburban Detroit golf league competitors call him, hung in there and made a match of it. Braun, like Last, has greatly improved his driving.  Surprisingly it was his chipping and pitching, normally a strong suit, that let him down.

Straus, though, was steady. He played pure bogey golf — 89,90,91 — on three unfamiliar courses and with the exception of a few inexplicable out-of-the blue (can you say shank) shots, hit the ball crisply throughout. It was a convincing win for the defending champ who now has won four of the last six events.

The courses were all terrific: Mistwood on Tuesday was interesting if a bit gimmicky; the Wednesday venue, Interlochen, an older course, quite pretty with mature trees, was a good test. The Thursday track, Emerald Vale, with its wide fairways and sweeping views was everyone’s favorite.

But enough about golf. Back to CoupleBuckle -- the name does have certain mellifluous ring to it, doesn’t it? This year there were eight of us.  Enormous thanks to Liz Barclay, Laura Braun, Nancy Evens and Carole Horowitz for helping celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Cup. The four women experienced much of the greater Traverse City area from going to the Mission peninsula to wine tasting, a garden tour in the Grand Traverse Commons (a converted Civil War era madhouse) and even a movie at the T.C. Film Festival. They made the event more of a celebration than ever before. So Arbuckle. CoupleBuckle. The Cup. Whatever. Here’s to twenty more.

 

Kathleen Straus presenting the green jacket 

to the champ, if the video doesn't run, 

then try https://youtu.be/vyApc5pQfjA

A compendium of photos will soon follow.....