MGABoston -- Berk Wins!

The Golden Bear finally emerged from his long hibernation to take his first title of the 2011 season. In a stellar performance, the Bear left his closest competitor five strokes back, and was the only player to break 90.     For the 2011 Bratish Open, the chapter returned to The Meadow at Peabody. Evidently the boys of Boston had grown tired of dominating straightforward, easy courses. Even on a good day, the Meadow is an unforgiving witch. In the midst of a national heatwave, on a course demanding accuracy and patience, with holes full of blind shots, this would not be a good day.  As an indication, a potential prospect for the 2012 season apparently suffered a heat stroke on the 15th hole and was unable to finish his round.  Clearly players need to work on their conditioning to cut it on the MGA Tour.                                           Left: JD Cohen Celebrates the end of a brutal round, as O'Connell demonstrates the Janitorial method of putting.                 Right: Obvious jokes about little heads aside, Michael Gates is clearly very proud of his Nixon era driver.        Fresh off his win at the F.U. Open, Ferraro was poised to make it two in a row, with a strong showing of 46 on the front., leaving him two back of Berk at the turn. Unfortunately, while Ferraro wished in the one hand, he took a major dump in his other, leading to an 8-stroke meltdown that dropped him to fifth place. While 8-strokes would, on most days, at least bring the meltdown award, that minor consolation went instead to Scully, with a 9-stroke differential en route to a 15th place finish.   If the MGA were interested in seeing its members get better, such an award may have gone to Andrew Gordon. Since genuinely caring for the success of others is for Nerds and marks, Xamot gets only a moral victory in countering his epic 67 on the front with a much improved 53 on the back.  Closest to the pin honors went to Shaoyu “PF Chang” Xue.   Peach offered another strong showing, reclaiming the first spot on the money list. There appears to be some mounting incredulity (Word of the Day, bitches) surrounding Peach’s performance of late, given the photos and video that have emerged. The MGABoston is currently accepting explanations for how a player can finish in second with shots like these:    {youtube}7KzTmhIXJaE{/youtube} {youtube}UKWd2VpHywI{/youtube}   Also to be filed under WTF?!, The Schwartz put up his best performance of the year, en route to a fourth place finish and adding some serious change to his piggy bank.   {youtube}YV2O-_isoQM{/youtube}   Of little surprise was the aforementioned dominance of one Mike Berk. In fact, the only curiosity was the fact that this was Berk’s first win this season, after finishing the 2010 campaign as hot as any player in the country (avid readers will recall, however, how epically The Bear shit the bed in representing his home chapter at the World Championships).   On this day, Berk’s net score of 89 was good for a 5 stroke victory, and tied him for the low net award.   On a sad note, the event may have marked the end of Fairway Tim’s MGABoston career, as he has recently accepted a transfer to the golf-friendly confines of Minnesota. In Tribute to Tim, the MGABoston offers the following highlight real from his Bratish Open (a feature length version is in the works): {youtube}b4MJc2C_Lnw{/youtube}     The real story of the day took place once the round was over, as 14 of the 22 competitors bailed on the awards ceremony. As the course is unfortunately dry (18 holes at the Meadow is like that first night in prison: there’s a lot of “grinning and bearing” and while a drink would make everything almost ok, no one will share their pruno with you), the remaining contestants made their way to what was a very well-reviewed pub down the street.                           Few came as well prepared as Gates and Spenard.   Unfortunately, none of the reviews mentioned the median age of the clientele. Making matters worse, the    players arrived at 4:30 pm, a.k.a. primetime.                         Clearly, the octogenarian hostess was unprepared for this sudden influx of 8. After several awkward moments of haggling over how to seat such a large party, the kitsch value of hosting the awards ceremony at a retirement home caffeteria quickly wore off. When the old Sofia finally agreed to push two four-tops together, Ferraro told her they ”just need to get something out of the car.” Whether she bought this lie is unclear. Perhaps she thought it was 1983 and we had all arrived in our wood-paneled station wagon with rear-facing third seat. Perhaps it was the dementia. Perhaps the years of bleached perms had finally taken their toll.  Irregardless, the opportunity to flee presented itself.  We ran out the front door and made our way to the next bar: Capone’s Speakeasy for Dining and Dancing, which advertised not one, but two function rooms for rent; clearly one of the North Shore’s finer establishments. The players were pleasantly welcomed by the smiles of middle-aged hostesses and the dim lighting, well-lacquered tables, and modestly sized flat-screen tv’s that are the hallmark of a just-divey-enough bar. The perfect location for a mediocre awards ceremony.   Some may wonder how we could hold such a ceremony when 85% of the award winners declined to attend. The answer: Linda.   {youtube}cOxjqsvKahM{/youtube}