Author Archive Belk

1st Annual F3 Golf Classic: Official Historians’ Report

On May 29th, 2014, 136 men, two (2) Official Historians, and the ugliest and least efficient beer girl ever to set foot on a golf course descended upon Old Sycamore Golf Plantation to raise money for the F3 Foundation.

This is the official record of the first annual, but certainly not the last, F3 Golf Classic.  For a dropbox folder with all photos we’ve collected, click here. For the #F3Golf live tweet recap, click here.

There are also reports of propaganda accounts of the event, which should be dismissed outright.

Setting the Stage

From the moment of its announcement, F3Golf generated significant buzz. As we all know, creating a new twitter account and a hashtag is the first rung on the ladder of greatness.

As expected, unsubstantiated claims of greatness spread far and wide among the pax. Rumors circulated before the event included the following:

  • Like F3 Columbia at the MudRun, Area 51 assumed its groups would sweep the top 3 because they live closest to the course.
  • Cindy preemptively composed a 5-part series on how to win the F3 Golf Classic even though 3/4 of his foursome had never played golf before.
  • Tiger Rag attempted to persuade Old Sycamore to allow #17 to be played in reverse while crawling on hands and knees.

The Shotgun Start

Just before launch, F3F Chairman Haywood reminded us what it’s all about with a recap of the good the Foundation is doing in the community. The message focused minds and hearts and all made ready to put the talk to the test. Foursomes assembled, carts loaded, pencils sharpened, and erasers tucked into pockets, all 136 men rolled out to designated starting tees.

Hey Talkbox — our editors say it’s “descend” but I’m sure nobody will notice. Hitman didn’t. We liked the photo so we used it anyway, but you might want to stick to mustache-growing instead of spelling.

Tales from The Course

YHCs just don’t know where to begin; there were so many good stories that we could relate, to say nothing of the many tales, of questionable veracity, that were shared with us by you. Below are a few highlights. We’d encourage you to click here to read the play by play, to which many contributed.

1. Not only was the beer girl ugly; she was also an awful beer girl.

Charity golf events are made or broken by the quality of the servers, who provide not only libations but also a friendly smile and encouragement throughout the day, especially when things get tough out there. Two beer carts roamed the course: one, piloted by F3F leader Haywood, spread cheer and witty tweets for all to enjoy; the other, piloted by world’s-best-weaselshaker OBT.

That’s right, the same guy who brought you this video (yep, it’s on the internet forever). Not all agree with that assessment; DriveThru was somewhat more charitable:

2. Longest drive prize awarded to Yo Gabba Gabba character Brobee

Longest drive and shortest drive awards are always fun additions to a tournament. While Busted Paw winner Cindy held the shortest drive lead for much of the day, it was host Area 51 Q Alf that came through with a drive off the cart path curb that went 8 yards. Behind the tee. Masters’ fan Early Bloomer Brobee scored the longest at 324.

Which is all beside the point; your longest drive winner also presented YHCs with the gift photo of the day, taken by OBT showing Early Bloomer quintuple-logoing his Masters’ gear.

Early Bloomer Before and After Rainstorm

Early Bloomer Before and After Rainstorm

Upon seeing this photo, YHCs were confounded and debated at length how such a thing could happen. We concluded that only one of two explanations was possible:

A. EB doesn’t know what he is doing; or
B. EB knows exactly what he is doing.

Jury’s still out.

 

 

3. Supplementary Foundation Income

Hitman waits his turn to get embarassed by Judge Smails

Hitman waits his turn to get embarrassed by Judge Smails while Tiger Rag supervises the fleecing

While the generosity of our sponsors and players was truly inspiring, that didn’t stop Haywood and Judge Smails from running a couple side gigs to take more of your money.

Judge Smails ran a beat the pro and racked up an astounding $702 making you look ridiculous.

That wasn’t the only way F3F raked in additional support; YHCs, Haywood and Belk, solicited bribes for favorable twitter coverage and raised something in the neighborhood of $500. Whiffs were overlooked, clutch shots were “made,” and non-contributors were heckled. For example, if you saw a tweet like this, it may have been aided by a donation.

Conversely, non-donators were heckled mercilessly. This telling video shows Cindy coming unraveled with the Official Event Historians’ harassment:

Skyfall

What kind of golf tournament doesn’t get hammered by a torrential downpour, hurricane force winds, flooding and hail? The F3 Golf Classic delivered. There are countless stories on this one but this is my favorite, submitted by FNG Jason McKinstry (lightly edited):

river2We were on the 15th hole. I stepped up for my mully, and addressed ball… A tornado like wind from my back started and I hoisted one high into the gale force wind… As I walked to cart, drops of rain the size of lacrosse balls fell… It didn’t stop, and as we hid under the bag lid in cart, waiting for what was to be a short storm, we saw the creek turn into the Colorado River and engulf my drive into a goonga, goongalagoonga type crevice…Afterward as we drove cart to hopeful safety, a trashcan “spiked in” course, came loose and floated under the murky roaring rapids that was the cart path at 17th. A young assistant of the course found me in light rain, on the fairway, laying down in mud, surveying undercarriage of cart where I pulled over, fearing massive cart damage.

You will be happy to know that said FNG made it out safely and no one has informed him yet that in F3 he should avoid saying things like “laying down surveying the undercarriage.”

According to Bananas and Tiger Rag, there was much uproar over the effect of the rainstorm on scoring, which forced the Pros to score based on a front 9 and back 9 winner. Some men sucked it up and kept playing, like this guy:

The Results

We named a winner, a shortest and longest drive, and even recorded a hole-in-one. Here’s the breakdown:

136 Golfers + 18 Hole Sponsors + 3 Expo Sponsors + 4 Main Sponsors + 2 Historians + 1 Ugly Beer Girl + 1 Hole in One =
$16,000 Raised. 

For a breakdown of our generous donors, click here. A very special thanks to the Main Sponsors Skywalker, KC, Pate and Spandex/24 HoB. Old Sycamore Plantation and especially Summer deserve our gratitude; they couldn’t have been more responsive, accommodating, and helpful.

Overall Winners***: Package/Santini/Menthol and FNG Ray Coker. 
Superb play and the team hailing from the smallest contingent, The Fort. Like SouthBeach’s marred victory in the Spring 2014 MudRun (kidney stones**), this win will be disputed all year due to the rain cutoff.

Top Regional Participation: Area 51
The hosts took the top prize. NoCo was 2nd with 40 and Metro a disappointing 36. The Fort brought 8 but took home the trophy. Metro as usual wins the trash talk contest but this time fails to deliver, whiffing on both top scoring and participation.  

Longest Drive: Early Bloomer (Metro)
Shortest Drive: Alf (A51)
Putting Contest: Derek Ezell (FNG)

Cases of Beer Consumed: 30. All of them. There were leftover snacks, which Bananas donated to his church, which should cover his Sunday School responsibilities for the fall.

HOLE IN ONE: FNG  Brandon Dyer, nicknamed Bar Tab
A thing of beauty that we almost certainly won’t see every year. Here’s his triumphant description:

The Bottom Line

What a day. YHCs have been at this a while and rarely are there opportunities to get this many men together in fellowship and faith to support a great cause. No matter your score, whether you were there or just reading the updates, or handing out beers, this was a tremendous success for The F3 Foundation, and F3, and the men who worked their tails off to pull it together. If you see one of the event sponsors, Tiger Rag, Bananas, Cottonmouth, Haywood, or one of the many who made the event possible, shake his hand. The money raised will make a real difference in our communities.

If you weren’t there, and this gets you fired up, write a check or click here to make a donation. It’s worth it.

 

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