By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
Starting in May and running through late October, the Lake Monticello golf travel team has been playing matches against teams from other golf courses around the region. The travel team plays each opponent twice, once at home and once away.
Traveler’s coordinator Karl Bergstresser said that generally, the home team wins most matches. This is not because the home team has wildly cheering fans that are intimidating to opposing players or possibly even officials. In fact, there are no fans or officials. However, familiarity with a golf course is a fairly big advantage. Every golf course has its own idiosyncrasies and reading greens is a lot easier when you have played a course many times.
As of this writing the Lake Monticello Travelers team is 4-1 at home and 0-6 on the road. The Lake squad was scheduled to host a sixth home match on Oct. 13, against Dominion Club from Richmond, but the match was postponed due to threatening weather.
The Lake squad opened its season on May 12 with a decisive 23 ½ – 12 1/2 home victory over Glenmore Country Club. The Lake Travelers then played three consecutive road matches and suffered losses to Ironwood in Harrisonburg, Dominion Club, and Orchard Creek in Waynesboro.
On July 7 and July 21, the Travelers topped Orchard Creek and Richmond Country Club in home matches to even their record at 3-3. Both of these wins were by decisive scores. They did not play again until Aug. 9 when they traveled to Glenmore for a rematch of their opener. This time Glenmore won fairly easily. On Aug 18 and 25, the Travelers played back-to -back matches against the Wintergreen squad. On the 18th, playing at home, the Travelers lost by a single point, 15 ½ to 14 ½. Bergstresser said that this is the closest match he has seen in his seven years with the Travelers. On the 25th, Wintergreen won 17 1/2 to 12 ½.
On Sept. 7, the Travelers played at Richmond Country Club and lost big, dropping its record to 3-7. On Sept. 29, the Travelers rebounded at home to beat the team from Birdwood, in Charlottesville.
On Oct. 19, the Travelers headed to Charlottesville to take on the Birdwood squad. The Birdwood course is home to the University of Virginia golf team and the course was recently redesigned to lengthen it for the big hitting college golfers. The final regularly scheduled match of the season will have the Ironwood team coming to the Lake on Oct. 27. The match with Dominion club that was postponed on Oct 13 may be rescheduled.
No set number of players are involved in the Traveler’s matches, and there is no set roster. Bergstresser had 33 regular players available plus six substitute players who he could call upon, if needed. The Travelers are mostly the better players from the 18-hole Gray Foxes at the Lake, but there are a number of other low handicap players on Bergstesser’s roster.
