16 THE CHARBONNEAU VILLAGER April 2021
Charbonneau Men ’ s Club
By DON MASON
Thank you to all our volunteers
What a great volunteer effort to get the Charboneau Golf Course into playable condition after the February
MASON ice and snowstorm . Up to 50 volunteers from all of the Charbonneau Golf Clubs plus other residents and a few nonresidents , spent multiple days cutting and stacking bigger limbs , raking and piling smaller limbs , fir boughs and leaves into manageable piles for the maintenance crew to collect and shred at the maintenance shed . What a wonderful community we live in to have that kind of volunteer participation !
Historically assisting the Golf Club with volunteer projects dates back to 1994 when Bob Olmsted organized the “ Adopt a Hole ” program where neighborhood residents work together on assigned holes to assist with tee and fairway divot repairs , ball marks on the greens and tee box flower maintenance . This volunteer program ended a few years ago due to aging volunteers and the expense of flowers at each tee box .
Another volunteer effort was started
in 2006 Mike Murray , Charbonneau Club record holder with a score of 53 , who organized members of the Men ’ s Club into weekly Tuesday morning work sessions that continues today . Work activities have varied from week to week , but have included tree trimming , edging course markers , divot repair on fairways and tee boxes , and installation of fairway yardage markers on sprinkler heads . Over the years , leadership of this effort has been handled by Dave Schaller , Spencer Groshong and currently by Perry Esterson .
Men ’ s Club opening day
We are all looking forward to the official beginning of the Men ’ s Club golf season Saturday , April 3 . Again this year our usual opening day breakfast will not be held due to COVID-19 gathering rules . We will , however , still play a four-man scramble with tee times to open the year .
At that breakfast , we normally recognize those members who passed away in the prior year . Three members passed away this year : Ron Lehl , Tom Councell and Dan Greenspan .
Ron and his wife Maxine are longtime Charbonneau residents , having moved here in 1997 . Ron volunteered as our course marshal for many years . As Club Pro Chris Bensel notes : “ He always volunteered to be here for every public tournament and was always loved by the events .” Chris always enjoyed seeing Ron when he came in . “ He would always give me a little grief and tease and we would have many laughs ,” Chris said .
Tom and his wife Marilyn moved to Charbonneau about 10 years ago and he played primarily with the nine-hole
��Your local paper mailed to you every week . ��The Portland Tribune mailed to you every week . ��Unlimited access to the Business Tribune . men ’ s group . As a couple , they often played in organized evening golf games .
Dan Greenspan was a general manager in the automotive business before moving to Tualatin from California more than 10 years ago . He played with the 18-hole golfers and served as vicepresident of the Men ’ s Club .
Rule of The Month
There are a couple different items on rules and handicapping this month .
� Posting scores for handicapping purposes began March 1 this year . When you record your scores , you are encouraged to post “ hole-by-hole ” as opposed to just recording total scores by the nines . The reason for this is that our course handicap ratings are based on hole-by-hole reported scores , so if you don ’ t report hole-by-hole , your scores will not be included in the course handicap ratings .
The following article was provided by Mike Brown . Having been a victim of the feared “ e ” score myself , I appreciate Mike ’ s explanation , but if you do have questions about his article , please refer them to Mike , not me !
� Over the winter months , many of our Men ’ s Club members have enjoyed the opportunity to play as much golf as the weather would allow . After each day ’ s golf , because of COVID-19 , we have had limited interactions with conversations conducted through masks .
During many of these brief interactions , questions regarding the new Handicap Index system would enter the discussion . With the newest set of Rules and Handicap Index calculations now entering their second year , two questions regarding these topics have been asked on many occasions :
� What is an Exceptional Score and how does it affect one ’ s Handicap Index ?
� What are soft and hard caps ?
An Exceptional Score is one which , when posted , is 7-9 . Nine strokes lower than the score differential when compared to the player ’ s Handicap Index . A score within this range will result in a reduction of all recent scores by one stroke . This reduction remains in effect until its impact on the index calculation is diluted with the addition of more posted scores . If the score differential is 10 strokes or greater , a two stroke reduction would be triggered . If multiple Exceptional Scores appear in the 20 most recently posted scores , each score will result in additional stoke reductions in an additive fashion . A soft cap procedure is one that is triggered when a player ’ s newly calculated Handicap Index is greater than 3.0 strokes higher when compared to the player ’ s lowest Handicap Index achieved over the past 365 days . When this cap is reached , the value above 3.0 strokes is restricted to 50 % of the usual increase . A second cap , known as the hard cap , is triggered to restrict the amount by which a player ’ s Handicap Index can increase after the application of the soft cap . This restricts the maximum increase to five strokes above their low Handicap Index . The purpose of this soft and hard cap is to limit upward movement of a Handicap Index .
To investigate in detail , these two Handicap Rules , please refer to the US- GA “ Rules of Handicapping , January 2020 ” sections 5.8 and 5.9 , pages 60-61 .
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