Sunday January 12, 2025

New Years News Bits- Opening Day 2025

We have coverage of the first two days of the new 2025 season along with a look back at 2024. Plenty of pictures from several different contributors of the winter storm to pass your time. Maybe we should throw in a couple bucks and make your prediction of when the next Bud's Boys round will be played.

It is good to be back up and running with my new computer. The geek salesman assured me this computer will be much faster. Honestly though, I seem to type just as slow as before.

Thursday Lunch Proposal

How about we meet again this Thursday (11:00) if there is no golf. We had a good turnout this past week and I propose we do it again this Thursday. Any thoughts welcome, otherwise, pass the word.

Thursday Jan 2

Thursday January 2nd was the official start to BB's 2025 season. Doc, Mikey, and Roger squared off against Randy, Glen, and Scott.

Scott wins the first Thursday Medalist of the new year, and it leads his team to a FBT sweep.

Doc wins the first CTP of 2025 to prevent the Royal Flush.

Friday January 3

For the second straight day a 2-team match was a 1-sided event with one team needing the CTP to post a single victory. Tom starts off 2025 with his first CTP while Roger (Medalist +3) Raymond and Glen all score on the plus side.

2024 Review

As previously stated in earlier blogs, the weather was tougher on the course than last year. We played 165 days in 2024 compared to 180 in 2023. Thirty-eight players played 2067 rounds (42, 2386 in 2023) for an average of 12.5 players per day (13.2 in 2023).

Scott led the way with the most appearances as expected. Here are the top participants in 2024.

Scott 148

Randy 137

Glen 133

KZ 122

Tom 121

Leroy 102

Doc 101

Jeff 100

Bob 97

Butch 94

Raymond 90

Money Watch

This is the first year where every day was a $5 day, so I just counted up how much everyone took home each day. Here are the gross figures. You just have to subtract number of days played times 5 to get your Net total.

KZ $708

Scott $698

Glen $677

Tom $671

Randy $645

Jeff $592

Leroy $543

Doc $512

Bob $471

Butch $468

Even those with a Jackson education can figure that KZ, Jeff, Tom, and Leroy finished the year with a nice sum above what they put in.

These four plus two more I will mention later are the only players to net more than $12. There were 6 of us, unfortunately, to fall $35 or more short of our entry fees. Since everyone else fell in between those numbers, it seems our game, for the most part, spread the winnings around as it is supposed to.

Butch and Dean tie for the equator award. Dean won $275 in 55 matches for a plus 2 net and Butch's total ended up a minus 2 to finish as close to net zero as possible. Rick was close with a 55/ $270 line.

Those not listed above who are interested to know their final numbers just need to send me a text.

CTP King

Tom left no doubt who the marksman of the year was. He consistently averaged 2 CTP's a month to end up with a record total of 24.

Tom 24

Glen 19

Jeff 14

Randy 13

Doc 10

Twenty-eight different BB's claimed at least 1 CTP.

John was the only 'regular' player to be shut out (0 for 53 attempts).

Medalist

A pretty tight race for most Medals was secured by KZ when he took 4 in the month of December.

KZ 19

Scott 17

Leroy 17

Randy 15

Bob 14

Thursday Medalist

Medalist is usually a nod to the player of the day, but on Thursday it comes with money. Here are the top Thursday Medalists.

KZ 6

Glen 5

Randy 5

Scott 3

Leroy 3

Bob 3

Honor Roll - 1 day scoring

Bill +13 8/25

Scott +12 3/5

KZ +11 2/27

KZ +10 6/5

Clint +10 3/20

Bob +10 5/24

Randy +10 4/4

Honor Roll - 1 day points

No question Tom and Glen are the heavyweights of our group. Heavyweights as in points, nothing else intended. They each reached the 40-point mark once, the 38-point mark once, and the 37-point mark 4 times! They shot an even par 36-points a total of 15 times (Glen 8 Tom 7). Randy (4), Raymond (2), and Doc (1) are the others to reach the even par 36 points.

Tom and Glen both had over 50 days as the 1-day points leader. A total of 14 different players can claim to have had the most points on their particular day.

Notable Performances

Big Payday! On Tuesday August 27, Tom's CTP, Keith's birdie on #9 for the skin, and Bill's +6 to lead a FBT sweep gives their team the biggest one-day payout of 2024. The 3 split the $75 pot for a $25 per man cut.

On Friday October 11th, Leroy has the most points (28), wins Medalist honors (+4), and wins the CTP to guide his team to victory in 4 of the 5 events.

Earlier I mentioned the 2 big winners in the Money Watch that were not listed. Playing a more limited schedule this year, Mikey cashed in on those days he did tee it up with the Bud's Boys. He cashed in $346 in 54 rounds. His plus $76 is an average of $6.41 per day, one of only 2 players to average over a dollar a day in winnings.

The other player is Bill, who played an even more limited schedule that shows him competing 28 times in 2024. But talk about striking when the iron(s) are hot! We already read he was in on the single biggest payday, but we must go back to May for his hot streak. He played 6 times in May and collected $95 in winnings. His payout per day was $12, $16, $19, $15, $16, and $17. Most of us think winning $4 per day is a good day. Our fun with numbers shows Bill's May totals and his big payday in August total $120 in 7 rounds, an average of over $17 a day. His other 21 rounds total a more normal $91 for an average of $4.33 per round. Put them together, however, and you have our top money winner per round with an average of $7.53 per round, by far the best 'Batting Average' of 2024.

We can't forget KZ's magical 20-game winning streak that stretched from April into June.