By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
Another successful season is in the books for the Gray Foxes organization at the Lake Monticello golf course. The year-end banquet was held at the Ashlawn Grill on Nov. 7. The dinner was well received by all and the included beer and wine flowed freely. The dinner signaled a significant passing of the torch for the 18-hole players. Dan Atkinson, the group’s coordinator for the past ten years, is stepping down and John Roeder is taking over.
The Gray Foxes are a senior men’s golf group that plays nine-hole competitions on Tuesday mornings and eighteen-hole competitions on Thursday mornings. There is an entry fee payable at the beginning of the season. The year-end banquet is largely funded from the entry fee. Each week the competitors play a different format as determined by the group’s coordinator. Some formats are individual scores, and some are two man or four-man teams. Once a month there is a ringers format. Ringers is a yearlong competition in which a player’s best score on each hole for the season, is all that counts. Gross score and net score are in play.
Keeping track of all the scores from week to week is no easy task. Some very excellent scores were recorded this year. For the eighteen-hole group, the lowest gross scores over the difficult Lake Monticello course were 71 by John Roeder and 73 by Mike Hanson. The low net scores for the season were 63 by John Stenz and 66 by Dan Atkinson, Rich Barringer, Shawn Chen and Paul Schmidt. The best gross score in ringers was recorded by John Roeder with a 61. He was closely followed by Mike Hanson and Les Tinsley with 62. The net ringers competition was a runaway. John Stenz came in at 46, while four others were at 52. They were Jim Davis, George Macomber, Jack Mudd and Mike Rodbell. In the year-long match play competition, Peter Rothschild had the best average score, recording 11.75 points per contest. George Macomber was second at 10.83.
The nine hole Gray Foxes are a slightly smaller group than the eighteen hole Gray Foxes and have been bolstered in the past several years by the determination that golfers can play in both groups, if they wish. The coordinator for the nine-hole Gray Foxes is John Stenz. The best ringers gross score over nine holes for the season was a 33 posted by Peter Rothschild. The second-best score was 35 by Jim Beach. The lowest net score over nine holes was 28 by Mike Hayden. Tied for second place were Ben Stoppe, Joe Esposito and Carl Haynes.
The Gray Foxes have been playing for almost as long as the Lake Monticello course has existed. However, the membership is constantly turning over. New members are always welcome. The players named above include some long timers but most of the names are fairly new to the organization. A number of lower handicap players are now included.
