Continuing our recent flurry of replay re-caps, Craig Small wrote me an sent in a summary of his All-Time Greats APBA Golf Tournament. He’s also going to expand on that and is asking for input from readers.
-Tom
by Craig Small
Hello, everyone.
I just wrapped up my inaugural All-Time Greats APBA Golf Tournament and wanted to share the results with you. I like to keep it simple and as fast moving as possible so I play with the basic rules and incorporate the lie charts as well for a bit more realism. I picked eight of the all time greats and had a single elimination 3 round competition. In the first round Hogan defeated Snead 65-68, Jones defeated Palmer in an extra playoff hole 71-71, Nicklaus defeated Faldo 67-74, and Woods defeated Nelson 66-67. In the semi-finals Nicklaus defeated Jones 68-74 and Woods defeated Hogan 68-70. I played the final this evening with Nicklaus defeating Woods 69-73. It was the sloppiest match of the tournament with lots of missed putts and Woods driving the ball all over the course. The entire tournament was played on the D.C. Metro course. I decided on stroke play because I wanted to see what kind of scores these guys could hit. Needless to say, it was a blast.
I’m planning on doing it all again in a couple of weeks and had so much fun the first time that I want to expand the field. I’ve decided to go with 16 players and 4 different courses. The first round will be played at Badger Links, the second round at Empire State, the semi-finals at Magnolia and the final at D.C. Metro.
Here’s where I was hoping that the APBA Blog readers could help me out. I’ve picked the initial 12 golfers but am having a hard time with the last 4. I’ve decided to go with Nicklaus, Woods, Hogan,Player, Jones, Hagen, Palmer, Snead, Sarazen, Watson, Nelson, and Faldo. I’d like to hear from you with your choices for the last 4 to make it in. At the end of two weeks I’ll tally up the results and the 4 with the most votes will be in. I’ve got the ATG 1 and ATG 2 card sets so there’s plenty of great golfers to choose from. I’d also like to know if you think I should continue with stroke play or switch to match play.
[cardoza_wp_poll id=2]
So let me hear from you. Give me your 4 choices to complete the tournament field and choose stroke or match play. Thanks for your help. I’ll keep you posted with the tournament results as it all gets rolling.
Thanks again!
Craig
I’ve included the poll above so you all can vote on the type of tournament you think Craig should use. Given the number of golfers available in the ATG 1 (link) and ATG 2 (link) sets, I’ll let you vote on the players in the comments section. -Tom
I have limited experience with the Golf game (both APBA and the sport itself) but I seem to recall Fuzzy Zoeller having a great short game. He might be fun.
Great writeup and nice to see some golf replay action!
Tom,
Thanks for the forum. It somehow makes it more fun if you’re able to share the results with others. Keep up the good work.
Craig
Couples and Crenshaw would be good choices. I didn’t see Trevino on either list, but I believe he is in the set the came with the new game.
Just wanted to share this interesting follow-up with everyone. I felt bad about leaving Walter Hagen and Gary Player out of the original tournament so I decided to pit them against each other this morning in an exhibition match. I learned what can happen when one player has a great day and the other has a really bad day.
Hagen beat Player by 17 strokes! Player really could not have had a worse day. He hit 2 balls in the water, lost a ball in the trees, and had another ball in the trees deemed unplayable. He took an 8 on the brutal 10th and another on the 17th. When he wasn’t in the trees he was moving from sand trap to sand trap. Just brutal. I felt bad for him. At least it was just an exhibition. Meanwhile Hagan set my D.C. Metro course record. He had 7 birdies and no bogeys. That’s while missing an 8 footer and a 10 footer. Wow! What a performance.
The final score: Hagen 65 Player 82.
Craig
Craig, you prompted me to read up on Hagen. Aside from being a great golfer, he apparently he did a lot to raise the stature of golf pros in his time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hagen
Tom,
Thanks for the link. I suppose you could say that Hagen and Palmer are two of the most important golfers in the history of the game. Hagen for legitimizing the profession and Palmer for popularizing the pro game. Pro golf was lucky to have a guy with Palmer’s personality come along to coincide with the rise of television.
Craig
Hello, Again.
I should also mention that I do have the set of 20 golfers that comes with the game. There are some fantastic golfers in that set and I don’t want them left out of the voting.
Craig
Thanks for sharing your story. I am working on a similar tournament with the 20 player ATG and 1951 sets. So far, the biggest revelation has been Johnny Miller’s ATG card. He’s been outstanding on the Congressio… er, DC Metro course and he’d be an excellent addition to your list. Best of luck!
I wanted to share some information I just discovered while reviewing the scorecards from the first tournament. The Par 3 10th hole at Metro D.C. is a monster. The hole was played 15 times by 8 of the greatest golfers to ever play the game and here are the results:
Birdies:2 (Palmer, Nelson)
Pars:5
Bogeys:5
Double Bogeys:3
If the hole is cut anywhere near the front of the green you can’t even consider going for it. I found the best way to deal with it is to take at least 1 club more than you think you need and hope for a good roll of the dice. Interestingly I found some great comments on the internet from pro golfers who talk about how cruel the design is on #10 at the actual Congressional course. Good job, APBA.
In an exhibition match I played after the tournament was over Gary Player took an 8. That’s right, 5 over par. Wow.
Craig
Woo-hoo! I just got my package in the mail from APBA today. It’s great to have the ATG2 cards on actual cards and not perforated card stock. That’s bugged me from the moment I got the original set a few months ago.
The 3 new courses are TOUGH looking. I’ve determined that I’m going to have to incorporate more of the master rules to really get the most of these courses. I’m definitely going to want to look into aiming and dog-leg rules. I think I’ll take Ernie Ells for a spin around the courses this weekend just to get myself acclimated with the rules before starting the tournament.
Unless something extraordinary happens in the next week it looks like the vote is overwhelmingly in favor of match play.
Craig
fantastic! Looking forward to an update sometime in the future!
Whoops! I spelled Ernie Els wrong. Sorry, Ernie! You deserve better.
Craig
I just finished my first round at Magnolia. I played 18 holes with Ernie Els while adding the aiming, dog-leg, and work the ball rules. It was great fun.
Ernie double bogeyed the 1st but showed his mettle by making a birdie on 2 and an eagle on the drivable par-4 3rd. He then made birdie at 6, 8, and 10 to go to 4-under. Then I got my introduction to Augusta National’s (Magnolia) famed Amen Corner.
Ernie took a quadruple-bogey 8 on 11, a double-bogey 5 on 12, and a bogey on 13. After a bogey on 14 Ernie had gone from 4-under par to 4-over par on a span of 4 holes. Yikes. He managed to birdie 15 and finish up at 3-over for the day.
It took me a little bit longer to play using some of the master rules but I’ll get the hang of it and it really does add a lot more realism.
I’ll be starting the tournament next weekend and I’ll play a few more practice rounds this weekend to get a better feel for the added rules and new courses.
Amen Corner, amen.
Craig