By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
For a number of years now the men’s golfers at Lake Monticello have fielded a Travelers team that plays home and away matches with teams from other golf courses. This year the Travelers coordinator Karl Bergstresser said that the Travelers will be playing seven home and away matches against nearby clubs. All are within an hour’s drive time. Four clubs that were in the competition last year are, Birdwood, Glenmore, Stoney Creek and Orchard Creek (formerly Waynesboro.) New this year are Ironwood (in Staunton) and from the Richmond area, The Dominion Club and the Richmond Country Club.
On July 7, the Lake Monticello Travelers hosted Orchard Creek. The format was two person better ball Nassau. Each foursome has two players from each team. On each hole the better net score of the two players counts as the team’s score. In this contest, there were ten foursomes. Seven of the Travelers teams beat their opponents and one tied. The Nassau score is one point for the front nine, one point for the back nine and one point for the total eighteen. In the Nassau scoring, it was Travelers 21.5 and Orchard Creek 8.5.
The Travelers record rose to 2-3 with their win over Orchard Creek. Bergstesser said that the home team almost always wins. That has been the case in all five of the Travelers matches in 2022. Local knowledge matters. Last season, the Travelers finished 5-4 with three matches cancelled.
On July 14, the Travelers hosted for the third time, with the team from the Richmond Country Club coming to visit. They said that they wanted to play with 24 golfers. This forced Bergstesser to scramble a little as his roster only has 21 regulars and two alternates. To be a member of the Travelers you are required to have a golf membership, and the Travelers roster naturally includes most of the better players at the Lake who can play on Wednesday mornings. Being a roster player gives golfers the advantage of being able to play a number of interesting and challenging nearby courses for only the cart fee.
