Salad Bowl Madness

Carlos, JJ ,Bernardo, Kyle

Last Saturday on May 21st, 2011, the Salinas Valley Junior Golf Association (SVJGA) hosted their 14th annual Jr./Adult golf tournament at the Salinas Golf and Country Club located in Salinas, CA. This event is a special two-player team event, in which where one Adult (18 years or older) and one SVJGA participating junior have the opportunity to play together in a variety of formats other than stroke play. Since Bernardo and I are both over 18, we gotta to play with former high school teammates of ours. I teamed up with Carlos Alvarez, a junior at Everett Alvarez High School, and Bernardo joined forces with Kyle Contreras, a soon-to-be graduating senior at EAHS as well. Although Kyle and Carlos are in different divisions in the Association, we still had our sights on beating each others respective teams. And although we weren't in the same group for this tournament, we all still had a lot of fun. The format this year is best ball. (The rules are as follows: everyone in the group plays their seperate golf ball, and records their own score. Then at the end of a hole, the team will select the lowest score from that hole and count it as their score for that hole. Example: If I make a six on a hole, and Carlos makes a four on the same said hole, then we will choose Carlos' score over mine and write down a four for that hole. This generally leads to chances for low scores, as long as both partners don't mess up on the same hole.) The competition between our two teams got serious enough that Carlos and I donned grey pants with black shirts as Kyle and Bernardo wore white pants with black shirts. In the end, Carlos and I managed to put together a score of 72, or even par at the country club, to win by one stroke over Bernardo and Kyle, who managed to shoot a one over par 73.

This tournament was a shotgun start, meaning that every group started on a different hole, since there were a bunch of teams and everyone wanted to finish in a relatively quick fashion. Carlos and I were paired with the group of Carter and Mike Silva, and we started off on the 18th hole. This meant that we would be finishing on the 17th hole, which is definitely the hardest hole on the golf course. We started off pretty well, with Carlos making a nice 7 footer for par on our first hole after I was in trouble off the tee. Then I had a chance to birdie #1 but my 5 foot putt didn't break as much as I thought. Then, things got rolling. Carlos nailed about a 20 footer off the green on the par 3 second hole for birdie, then I hit a 7-iron close on 5 to tap in another birdie and get us to -2 through 6 holes of play. We kind of stumbled with a bogey on #7, our 8th hole of the day, but we quickly rebounded when I got up and down for birdie on #10 to get us back to 2 under par. From then on, however, it was a slight struggle. We gave that birdie back at 12, and then surrendered another bogey on 15 to get us to even par for the tournament. Luckily, Carlos parred 16 for us so we could set our sights to try and manage at least par on 17, our last hole of the day. At that point, we had talked to Bernardo and Kyle a few holes back and knew they were fluttering around even par as well. So we guessed a par on this tough hole could possibly win the duel between us. This hole didn't come easy however. I pulled my drive so far left it ended in the middle of the 18th fairway, and Carlos' tee shot left him with a tree to contest with. Carlos got it near the green, but par wasn't guaranteed, so I had to hit one as good as he just did. Luckily I did just that, hitting one of my best shots of the day- onto the green about 15 feet away for a birdie putt!! Unfortunately I missed it on the low side, and had to make a testy 3 footer for the par and the score of 72. Fortunately, it was good enough to outlast 9 other teams in Carlos' division, narrowly defeat Bernardo's team, and take home the first prize.

Bernardo's recap:

My teammate Kyle and I, started off the 3th hole, since it was a shotgun start, allowing our finishing hole to be the 2nd hole. We were paired up with Josh Perham and his father, just like me and kyle, they both were matching, with pink tops and gray bottoms, expressing their taste for a bit of fashion. On our first hole, I hammered a 3 wood down the middle about 50 yards away from the hole, #3 is a short par 4, allowing me to set up a easy par for the team. After a shaky start for kyle, he pulled through on our second hole, hitting the fairway and knocking a short iron to a mid-range putt, setting up a easy two putt par. On #6, Kyle missed the fairway, but was able to hit a great shot into the green, setting up a short putt for birdie. We continue at 1-under par till we reached #7, were we both hit bad tee shots, making it difficult to hit the green in regulation on this short par 4, kyle would fashion a bogey, placing us at even par. Standing on the 10th tee, easiest par 5 on the course, we knew that we needed to get a birdie or better. We both hit the fairway, allowing us to go for the green in two, both second shots landed left of the green, I was able to hit a great pitch to about 3 feet and sink the birdie putt. Kyle would chip-in on the next hole #11 for birdie, our team score was 1-under par. As our birdie bogey cycle continued, terrible second shots would force another bogey on #12. Cruising through the back nine, birding number 14th, now one under. We felt a bit of pressure since we knew we needed to be around 3-under par to win, with the added pressure we missed the green on the easy par 3 #16, resulting in difficult chips and a bogey. Heading into #17, the hardest hole on the course as mentioned by my fellow blogger, we lost a bit of excitement since we knew that it would take 3 birdies on the last four holes to win. I hit a good drive down the middle on #17 setting up a short iron into the green, Kyle missed the fairway making it difficult to hit the green in two, my second shot would land left of the green forcing a chip over the bunker, resulting in a bogey. After the bogey on #17 we knew it was over, we would par the last 3 holes, to finish at one over par. Overall the day was not great, kyle and I both hit some great shots but not enough to win our division or the other friendly match.

Kyle on #9

Overall, this tournament was such a good experience for Bernardo and I; as we don't play as much tournaments as we used to and it got our adrenaline pumping. Excitement was evident in all of us as some friendly banter was talked to one another in the week leading up to this event. Although current EAHS MVP Carlos and I managed to hang on for the narrow win between our dear friends, this does not mean our competitions will end here. In fact, we are in the planning stages for setting up another two-on-two showdown, this time with it most likely being the college kids/bloggers (Bernardo and I) vs. the high school duo (Kyle and Carlos). Stay tuned for that duel and more updates from our blog!!