2016 Pot O' Gold

Date: 2016/03/13

H. Lee. CIKOGA Reporter

We, J. Choi, H. Yim, and H. Lee - had a lot of "Pot O' Fun" on season opening scramble golf tournament at Governor's Run. Getting up at 5:00am on the first day of DST was tough but everyone was all ready by 6:00am. Rain was sprinkling throughout the area in the morning so we thought that the event would be cancelled eventually. Anyway, we left Champaign to try their luck.

Surprisingly, 12 teams out of 15 showed up and the event started exactly at 9:00am as scheduled. All carts were ready with our names on it, too.

A team wore the same black caps like we wore the same white caps. Some teams brought their own golf cart covers to minimize the effect of rain. We could even notice a college athlete from Mulikin university in one team. It appeared that all participants were dead serious about golf and confident with their skills. When we registered, we went for skins game as well by paying extra $60.

We started from hole #5 and were paired with a team who came from 1 hour 20 minutes away.

We started strong in the first 4 holes and were one stroke ahead of the other team but we were beaten by the 10 strokes at the end. We ended with -3 and the other team got -13. Our partner team was placed 2nd in Championship Flight. The winning score was -15. We were unlucky because the winner of A Flight was -5 and that was the cutoff for 6 teams (= 3 teams from Championship Flight and 3 teams from A Flight) shootout for extra $500. There were 2 teams who won skins. Each skin was $300.

Although we're a little bit disappointed for our near-misses despite our great teamwork, the head pro thanked all of participants for coming out despite rain and handed out free rounding tickets and were're very happy like winners. We all agreed that we will definitely play at Governors Run again during summer when golden fairway grass will turn green.

While 6 teams were gathering at 9-th par 3 hole to determine the $500 winner, we were asking the head pro if it's OK to play more. He acknowledged our golf enthusiasm and allowed us to replay with $14 per person. We ended up playing another 17-holes (9th hole was still busy with shootout between the final 2 teams - it seemed very tough to win $500.) starting from hole #1 thanks to DST. Weather was gorgeous in the afternoon with a plenty of sunshine and we could not ask for more. In total, we played 35 holes from 9am to 6pm.

Then, we headed to Firefly grill and enjoyed P.E.I. mussels and ribeye dinner. Firefly's atmosphere was good but its menus are pricey so we will try a different restaurant called Niemerg's next time. When we arrived back at Champaign, it was 9:30pm. What a crazy golf fun day!