By Rick Colvin
Strong play by John Higgins and Steve Voss propelled their team to a total of 144 points, the highest of the day, to take overall honors in the 2nd Flight of the Team Stableford game April 28 on the Marshwood course.
On the front nine, Higgins shot a 36 and Voss shot a 39, contributing to the 78-point total for the team, which included Rick Colvin and Rib Rubin. Higgins sank a 35-foot putt for a birdie on the par 3 8th and Voss had a terrific second shot to about 8 feet on the par 4 1st hole, which he sank for a birdie. On the back nine, Higgins and Voss accounted for the majority of the team’s 66 points.
Teams were competing to be one of three winners in each flight: for highest overall as well as highest number of points on the front and back nines. Each team could only win once. The team of David Brown, Bruce Gingold, Scott Happ, and Jay Schecter won the front nine in the 1st flight with 74 points; back nine winner, with 68 points, was the team of Kevin Brindle, Greg Snyder, Tony Lombard, and Edward Zimmer.
In the 2nd Flight, the team of David Evans, Craig Flynn, and Ron Thomas had 142 points to win overall. The team of Bob Banuski, Steve Heacox, and David Martin won the front with 73 points; the team of Jim Dwyer, James Headley, and Gary Mehes won the back with 65 points.
New Skins Format
A new approach to awarding skins, designed to make the side bet fairer to golfers of all abilities and encourage more golfers to participate, debuted as a pilot for this game. Called MoreSkins, the new approach gives natural, or gross, scores greater weight than net scores. For example, a gross birdie beats a net birdie, and so on. The pilot seemed to achieve its goals: 41 golfers of all handicap levels out of the 67-man field participated and the weighting broke ties, resulting in the awarding of five skins.
Skins winners: Dave Evans, James Headley, Ron Thomas, John Sweet, and Steve Voss.
The MoreSkins approach will be used May 5 and the subcommittee that studied the new approach will make a final recommendation to the LMGA board at its meeting in June.
Membership Notes
Thomas Lanahan, one of the founders of the Landings Mens Golf Association, passed away April 14. He was 81. Lanahan was one of seven Club members who met in March of 2013 to organize the association and he served on the board for a few years. Sixty-five members attended the first LMGA board meeting in April of that year and, by May of that year, the organization had 191 members.
Lanahan was known, fondly, as a stickler for the rules of golf. Mike Staman, another LMGA founder, recalls that Lanahan would pay attention to where, exactly, a fellow golfer teed up. If the player put his tee even slightly in front of the tee markers, Lanahan would ask, only partly tongue-in-cheek: “Are you going to play the whole course or just part of it?”
