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amputation of his right arm following a
near fatal fox hunting accident.
“I think that’s what makes it so interesting,” said Andrew Stifler, a long-time
and now retired school administrator and
fundraiser who has become the Whackers
assistant commissioner, responsible for
rounding up the foursomes and reporting
all the scores for VSGA handicap purposes.
“It’s really a very diverse group. We had
one player who had a stroke and needed to
be driven up to every tee box and green so
he could get off the cart onto a flat surface.
He took a little extra time to put on a special
glove that attached to his club so he could
swing. But no one ever minded. It’s a very
tolerant group.”
Recently, one Whacker was not very tolerant of a course that had recently punched
all 18 greens, lost most of its grass in the
fairways during a debilitating heat wave and
had not replaced washed out sand most bunkers. A retired lawyer/litigator, he went into
the pro shop and respectfully voiced his and
other Whackers’ displeasure with the sorry
state of the course. The general manager
apologized profusely and gave every player a
coupon for a free round of golf. Case closed.
Malcolm Matheson is the Commissioner and one of the Whackers’ three original
founders. A retired Washington businessman and long-time resident of The Plains,
he’s also the much-beloved and widelyrespected Master of the Orange County
Hounds, a fine horseman who adores fox
hunting as much he enjoys chasing birdies
and the occasional eagle. Matheson cuts a
most distinguished figure atop a hunting
horse; on the golf course, he’s a tad more
of the frustrated everyman golfer, particularly after a botched shot. He’s definitely
not just yelling “tally ho.”
The Whackers were started in 1997 by
several members of the Chevy Chase Club,
including Matheson, who had also moved
west to Loudoun and Fauquier counties.
They began meeting at two Leesburg venues, Westpark, a public course, and the Lansdowne Resort. Before long, they were having
so much fun, they began inviting other pals
to join them and the group began to grow.
Why Whackers?
“I’m not really sure how that started,”
Matheson said, “but that’s what we do,
right?”
These days, the Whackers play an eclectic
mix of public facilities and private clubs,
vsga.org
Assistant commissioner Andrew
Stifler rounds up the foursomes and is
responsible for reporting scores.
It’s a diverse group in terms of skill
level, ranging from a few single-digit
handicappers to players in the upper 20s,
and occasionally higher.
including VSGA member clubs Evergreen
in Haymarket, Loudoun Golf and Country
Club in Purcellville and Millwood Country
Club, a mostly obscure nine-hole gem in a
tiny Virginia town “over the mountain” from
Middleburg in rural Rappahanock County.
That course was built by farmers in the
1920s and has many quirky holes, some
pocked with unforgiving granite boulders
that often come into play, seeing as they
stick up right in the middle of several fairways. Club members have been known to
take their dogs along as they make their
way around a course that has no practice
range save for a couple of modified batting cages. There’s no pro shop, bar or
restaurant and most club business is done
on the honor system, from signing up for
carts and green fees to taking a beer out of
a well-stocked refrigerator.
The Whackers are more than happy to
have their post-round sandwiches provided by the nearby Locke Store in Millwood,
another country jewel that does a huge
business in gourmet sandwiches and other
delectable items.
Lunch is a big part of Whacker Wednesdays, a chance to talk about making
monster putts, startling saves from the sand
or 250-yard drives (not often). Matheson
said as far as he can recall, there’s only
been a single Whacker hole-in-one, and
he should know. He made it himself at the
16th hole at Evergreen a few years ago, but
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