Cap Cana Pro-Am - Report

Robert · #1 04-04-2008, 02:13 PM

From our resident DR1 golf expert, Hillbilly.

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Day one of the Cap Cana Pro-Am

The wind continued to play havoc with the players, both Professionals and amateurs. The first day say winds in excess of 40 KPH, and professionals the likes of Tom Kite saw balls into the Caribbean, driven by the very stiff winds.
Your DR1 reporter was assigned as a scorer for the entire event, traipsing along with a specific group and making that the scores of the group were reported to the central computing office via radio. This is an official PGA event, and that means that there is a strict protocol for using the radio. With 26 groups of threes the possibility of interference would increase enormously with improper of the radios. The scorer would say for example: “Group 16, Hole 5, reporting scores.” Central would answer: “Group 16, Hole 5, reporting sores.” The Scorer would then say, “group 15 Hole 5, 4 4 3.” Central would answer once more, “Group 16 Hole 5, 4 4 3.” And nothing more.

The protocol would be similar for medical emergencies or rules interpretation. Absolutely no chit-chat.

The scene at Punta Espada (see Bok’s Report in DR1 Golf) is one of awesome beauty. Even With threatening skies, really hard gusts, and the quick rain shower, the place is just beautiful. Of course it has been \manicured for the pros, and is in impeccable condition. One of the constant reminders of just how hard the folks at Cap Cana worked to do this is reflected in the comments of the players. From Chip Beck, Tom Watson, Bernard Langer, one and all have words of praise for the layout and the spectacular vistas of the sea.

A casual visitor would face some serious issues of security just to gain access to the place. Entry into Cap Cana is restricted, and no parking without a permit to the assigned parking lot is possible. The parking permits must be shown at all times. Then there are the day passes. Tickets with a string that must be visible while one is on the course, and the lack of a visible ticket will soon bring a large escort to the exit. However, at RD$1000 per day, the event is only attracting the people that love golf. And they are coming from all over.

In fact, tomorrow, a couple of guys from the North Shore are supposed to show up for duty on Friday. I think they will be somewhat overwhelmed at their assigned task, since they neither attended the Santo Domingo orientation or the one in Punta Cana. And everything is done the PGA way or it is not done. No matter, they will be welcomed and put to work somewhere..

The 400+ volunteers are a marvel to see. Students from Santo Domingo (Unibe and PUCMM), teens from the high schools, retirees, ex-pats, missionaries, you name it and there is sure to be one of them here.

As things turned out, your reporter was assigned to a starter’s post today, since there were not enough scorers to follow all the groups, they decided not to use them for the Pro-Am. It was a pleasure greeting champion golfers the likes of Ian Woosnam, Jim Albus, Dave Eichelberger, Garry McCord and John Cook. Later I n the day we greeted Tom Kite, Bernard Langer, and Sandy Lyle, among others. These three are winners of major tournaments…and a sight to watch.

Oh it is fun for those of us so sick in the head regarding golf, but it is also work. Our team leader and a few of us were on the course at 6 this morning and we finished, non-stop, at 4:40 as the last group passed or tee box. Tonight will be an early night, you can be sure…

Robert · #2 04-04-2008, 02:15 PM

Day II of the PGA Champions Tour Pro-Am tournament dawned with overcast skies and a very stiff wind out of the south-southeast. It was at least 30 knots.

As a volunteer I was assigned to scoring, but since most of the volunteers won't be here until Friday, there was no walking scorers. That, however, made no difference since we were put to use all over the property.

Today, I was honored to be assigned the job of starting off 20 groups of four amateurs and one pro for the day. This job is akin to herding cats, since many of the amateurs have a very Dominican mindset as to what being on time is all about. In spite of numerous reminders, several groups were late off the tee and this caused a stack-up for the groups in back. In golf, especially in a tournament as significant as this one for the Dominican Republic, on time means 20 minutes ahead of time, at least. That means you are ready to play, all warmed up, equipment in shape, etc, etc.

It was amazing! One player did not even show up and another was 9 holes late in joining his group and and still another, a American from Miami waltzed to the tee after all the photographs had been taken with a dumb smile and a "Sorry!" ...The best thing that happened was when the guy failed to show up for Bernard Langer's group, Langer asked me to join them!!! I was dumbstruck! The winner of Masters, the Captain of the European Ryder Cup team, a winner of so many awards and a member of Golf's Hall of Fame asked the old HB to play!! Unfortunately, I left my clubs in Santiago so another of the volunteers was gifted a very expensive pass to play with a great!!

Once again the wind was the enemy of everyone. Craig Stadler launched a great shot and then grumbled "Like I like to hit 190 yard drives, sh**!!" this from a guy that can do 300+ on a good day.

Some differing opinions on the course are starting to flower. One pro said that the greens were misshaped, since the would not receive a well struck ball. Another said that one hole (13) was backwards! Still another loved the beauty of the place but the wind!!! All throughout the day, many of my very good Dominican golfing friends were explaining that while Punta Espada is a windy course, it is not Usually this windy.

Tomorrow is the day! I spent the last of a thirteen hour day helping to write up the paring sheets for the scorers tomorrow. There will be 26 threesomes teeing off between 9:30 and 11:30 tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday. They are playing for $2,000,000. The winner takes home $300,000.

After today's efforts on the first tee, I was offered a chance to be the starter tomorrow, but I needed to get a short-sleeved white chacacabana!! ARRRRGGGHH. First Langer and now this!! Oh the gods of Fate!! No chacabanas in the Hillbilly's wardrobe this week... Who woudda thought!! My daughter in law and her mother called every men's store in the entire area: Oscar de la Renta on down. Nothing. They finally found a tailor who would make me one! Fair price, too. So I hightail it over to Veron, the Shell station, and there, on the concrete apron of the gas station he takes my measurements. "I'll have it ready for you tomorrow Sir!" so if the gods continue to shine down, I might be on one of the tees on Saturday and Sunday. You can look for me on the Golf Channel Sat and Sun 1-4 in the afternoon. They do a lot of editing, since it is golf they televise and not my startling presence nor my melodious voice announcing some golfer...

Some of the volunteers have worked 13 hour days for three days now. Most of us are in bed by now (10 p.m.), and I will be following shortly.

One last thought on this great event. These golfers are true professionals. they WORK at what they do. For example, Bernhard Langer played his 18holes of golf under very trying conditions and then spend hours under the sun and wind on the putting green, trying to get "that" feeling for the way the grass grows and the speed of the greens... In fact, ALL of the golfers practiced after they had finished their rounds. Second, these men are great people persons, with one or two exceptions. they make the amateurs feel right at home, laughing and paying them attention as if they were an important part of their (professional's ) lives. This makes a lasting impression on everyone that comes into contact with them. For example, while we were waiting for a brief shower to dissipate, I was holding an umbrella for Nick Price, a winner of major golf tournaments and another member of the Hall of Fame. One of the group happened to be one of my son's very good friends and he mentioned the unfortunate passing of Marco. Nick was immediately attentive and he remarked how his brother had passed away and how his mother was still having trouble dealing with it. A real glimpse into the life of a major sports, incredible. I was really moved by his sincerity, and I'll never forget it.

Keep your fingers crossed so I can be a Starter for the weekend...

All the best,

HB

web · #3 04-04-2008, 05:23 PM

wow, awesome report HB. you left your clubs at home amigo? you should of went to the pro shop and banged that visa for some rentals or bought a set for that chance. you got me thinking now to roll on down there. I went to a tournament at the TPC Avenel in Potomac, MD one time, very cool. maybe I'll see you there!

RandyE · #4 04-04-2008, 06:49 PM

Keep it commin' buddy. Will be lookin' for your your small screen debut this weekend!

BushBaby · #5 04-05-2008, 02:30 AM

As you know HB, I am an empathic & (normally) sympathetic type of guy .......
YOU GREAT BIG PLONKER!!!
Fancy going to a do like this & not taking your clubs with you!

!

! The LEAST you could have expected would have been a free round at one of the courses!

!

Glad to hear you are having a good time & meeting some great people. I would have loved to have been there with you but the Teachers course here in Playa Dorada called & I had to stay!! It IS going well though & we look forward to future events/courses being run later this year!

Will look for you 'On The Box' when time permits tomorrow & Sunday!! ~ Grahame.

Robert · #6 04-05-2008, 04:57 AM

Day three of the Cap Cana Pro-Am

What a difference a day makes. The Muslim world has a praise of God: God is good, God is great…..And oh how true that is…

Little wind today, the more typical 18 per hour breeze that brought explorers and pirates to the Caribbean. Not those 50 (yes, 50 mph) gusts that blew people off their feet.

The PGA Champions Tour at Cap Cana, the $6,0 million promotion of golf, Cap Cana and the Dominican Republic, all rolled into one, got off to a wonderful start.

Of course, these professionals took as much advantage of the course as they could, and the course stood up to the tests. A total of 20 golfers played par or better. That means that 56 of the world’s best golfers, 50 and over, could not beat the course. And you’d be surprised at some of the names: Dave Stockton, Bernhard Langer, Mark McNulty, Craig Stadler and Nick Price were a tad over par. Tom Kite, Ed Doughtery, Graham Marsh, were “way” over par.
( While I am writing this I am in the Punta Cana Resort Hotel almost forced to watch a bunch of well lubricated Americans make fools of themselves with the flight crew of an Air France charter flight to Paris. Man, I have seen some cruel cuts and put downs but these French stewardesses (flight attendants in the PC world) lowered the temperature in this non-air conditioned venue by several dozen degrees….Seems a shame that these clowns have the money to make such a poor display of US manhood…)

Anyway, back to golf. The star of the day was Mark Wiebe at -5, followed by Fulton Allem and Vicente Fernandez at -3. then Tom Watson, Jay Haas, last year’s money leader, and James Mason at -2. Tom Purtzer, a man with one of the most picture perfect swings in professional golf, regular or Champions Tour (flat belly or round belly tours!!!) hit the longest drive, a 350+ yard drive into a crossing wind.

The organizers had recruited a bunch of Sto. Domingo school kids, of excellent parentage for sure, to carry the signs that tell the spectators how the group is doing. What a fiasco this turned out to be. The signs are HEAVY, and act as sails in this breeze. None of these kids was in sufficient physical condition to do this, especially since the PGA does not provide those leather pouches suspended from a belt to hold the standard. They were supposed to carry the sign like a striker walking a picket line. That idea was quickly abandoned and in the end there were no signs on the course.

Today, my job turned out to be herding cats! Yup, 26 scorers walking the course reporting scores to a central control—me! There was a fairly strict protocol for using the radios, very direct and to the point, with no musings. Not that it was observed all the time: at one point an excited scorer broadcast that Wiebe made a ‘sandy birdie!!”, a difficult sand shot that went into the hole. Not proper. Another time, there was a blast when one of the golfers scored an eagle. The all-time best and worst was when one of the scorers did not check to see if his transmit button was unstuck, and broadcast a lurid account of a beautiful young girl that was crossing nearby, in true Dominican lustiness. Fortunately the PGA officials in the truck with me did not understand even a little bit and we escaped a major rebuff.

One great moment was when these 26 guys came in to the after session. Some were mildly chastised forfailing to observe proper radio protocols, aome were praised for good, precise reports. The best was when the guys showed off autographed golfballs, presents from the pros, and we got to tell them that this is an “inside the ropes” way for the golfers to say “Job well done!” to these volunteers. Not all of them got golfballs, but one guy, a poster on DR1 got three! One each from Tom Watson, Bernhard Langer and Mark McNulty!!!!!!

After setting up for tomorrow’s pairings, which includes writing out by had the names of the players, their tee times, their first tee number (1 or 10), their standing to par (+ or – par) and making sure they were in proper order, I took off for the car, with a ride from my friend Henry B. As soon as I turned on my cellphone, I got flooded with messages from my daughter in law and the tailor. Where was I??? The Chacabana is ready!!! Where was I??? So, I checked in and cooled things down and told the tailor (Juan Rossó) that Iwould be in the Shell station in Verón in ½ an hour. And I was. Eventually, he shows up with my shirt in a plastic dry cleaning bag. It was beautiful, so possibly tomorrow I will be a starter for an hour or so, hopefully on Hole 1 after 10:30 for some of the big names..hehehe.

It’s late and I’m off to bed, ‘cause tomorrow comes too fast.

HB

aegap · #7 04-05-2008, 06:54 AM

Pics of the first day of play, ..

Getty Images - The Cap Cana Championship

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Wiebe out front by two at Cap Cana Championship - USATODAY

PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic (AP) — Mark Wiebe shot a course-record 5-under 67 on Friday to take a two-stroke lead in the Champions Tour's Cap Cana Championship, the first pro golf event ever in the Dominican Republic.

Vicente Fernandez and Fulton Allem opened with 69s in windy conditions on the Jack Nicklaus designed-Punta Espada course. The sustained 25 mph wind led to an average score of 74.688, the highest opening-round mark this season.

SCORES: Cap Cana Championship

"The wind was making the course play really hard and today's round was one of my best, even going back to when I played on the PGA Tour," Wiebe said. "My strength today was missing in the right spots. Mentally, I'm tired, but I'm happy to get in with my score."

Fulton Allem, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour, hit a 2-iron to 8 feet for only eagle of the day at the par-5 sixth. "The eagle was definitely the highlight of the day," Allem said. "Overall, I hit a few bad shots, but I was able to make that eagle and five birdies which really helped."

Jay Haas, Tom Watson and James Mason opened with 70s, and Sandy Lyle, Scott Hoch, Eduardo Romero, Brad Bryant, Mike Reid, Gary McCord and Bruce Vaughan had 71s.

Bernhard Langer, the Ginn Championship winner last week at Hammock Beach, shot a 74, while Joey Sindelar and Greg Hickman had 75s in their Champions Tour debuts.

Wiebe out front by two at Cap Cana Championship - USATODAY.com

Robert · #8 04-06-2008, 02:52 AM

Day 4 PGA Journal

Saturday, 5 April 2008

Today dawned fairly with just a zephyr breeze out of the East Southeast. The terrible winds of earlier in the week were gone, and this became a major topic of conversation. Yesterday I forgot some numbers: There were 169 birdies; 288 bogies; 36 double bogies and 2 “others!!. Just one eagle!

This morning the caddies showed up early to prepare the standards for the course, and it had been decided that they would carry them for pay. Good idea. We were informed by the PGA that we could only use 4 starters, so my chance at being a starter was shot out of the sky, but there is always next year. AND I just might finagle a duty as a walking scorer with one of the last few groups. (Yeah, just in time for television….I ain’’t really dumb!)

On the whole the set up for today’s second round was much faster and easier. With few exceptions, everyone was on time. There were no people trying to talk on their cell phones like yesterday when I had to confiscate three cell phones in two minutes. N0 phone no cameras.

I found out that there are a couple of slooow players: Levi and Denis Watson, and a fast player, Jim Thorpe.

Once again I found myself in the trailer and following the play from afar..Oh well, I was accompanied by some really nice PGA officials that made the day go by really fast.

As I said in the opening, the wind was even less than the day before and the course was open for the taking. There were some spectacular rounds with Joe Ozaki’s new course record of 65 ( seven under par) the leading score for the day. Of the first group of Wiebe, Allem and Fernandez, only Wiebe survived to lead going into the final day. The stroke average was lower (71.95 vs 74.68 for Friday), and the number of good scores in the 60s went up dramatically (28 vs 3 yesterday), and finally there were 56 scores of below par versus only 13 on Friday. On Friday nobody escaped the dreadedbogie, and today there were seven, Wiebe of course and surprise John Harris who shot 82 on Friday went low on Saturday going -5 for the day.

There were some nice stories going around. How Gene Hickman, who had been Fulton Allem’s caddie until just a few weeks ago, was playing fairly well in his Champions Tour debut. Joey Sindelar was not going so well inhis first start on the SeniorCircuit…

My team of scorers (well it was Henry’s team, but I was catching them) did a fantastic job today, we did not have one scoring error-a difference between our scores and the official score that the players turn in. The had not been seen on the tour in many weeks!! Hooray for us.

Without a real golf culture, the marshals are hiving a tough time controlling the people in the grandstands that think this is like baseball, or like a Presidential press conference where you are allowed to trample everyone except the President. We had to send marshals to several sites along the course to hold back the crowds. And yes, there were crowds. Oh not like the Masters, but crowds..and remember it costs big bucks to get out here.

And where will Hillbilly’s new chacabana be used??? Ahhh, at the Volunteer’s Ball on Sunday.

Tom whitehead and Bill Jaspar from the Sosua area are certainly two of our best scorers, by far. So far they have collected more than a half dozen balls!!

My eyes will not stay open, so I am going to bed…

Good night.

HB

aegap · #9 04-06-2008, 04:29 PM

Pics of yesterday's round, ..

Getty Images - The Cap Cana Championship

Robert · #10 04-07-2008, 03:29 PM

Day Five dawned, once more with beautiful skies, a light breeze and the promise of some interesting golf. Today the Old HB was going to walk the course (7,400 yards!!) with one of the final pairings. Our team leader got the final pairing, our outstanding walking scorer of the first two days (as determined by me and the team leader) got the next to last pairing and I got the third to last pairing of Gene Jones, a qualifier, Bruce Vaughan and Mike “Radar” Reid. They were all at 4 under par.

Previous to this I had put on a coat of SPF50 sunblock the night before, and again in the early morning. Then, at the Volunteer’s Tent yet another coat. I had seen too many badly burned faces and arms over the long week. It worked, and I did the whole day in the sun with no noticeable burns. I know it is preaching to the choir here but there IS a lesson to be learned for our visitors and we who live here.

Punta Espada, reported by DR1’s Bok as a beautiful course, is far, far more than that. So much more, in fact that the folks at Golf Channel were getting calls from the states asking if Cap Cana had painted it to make it so beautiful. I could give you a running hole-by-hole score on the round. It was hot, the breeze was soft and Punta Espada had fewer defenses against these pros. As you have read in today’s press, Mark Wiebe won with a fine -14 total and a nice round yesterday and went from 34 to 6 on the Money List, the pro’s thermometer.

An interesting note was the outstanding round by 62 year old Vicente Fernández who shot a record tying round of 65 on the day and dropped from 65 on the list to 23!!.

Back to ‘my’ threesome. Gene Jones, a Monday qualifier for the tournament, was playing very well, hitting huge drives-way up there-and wonderful approach shots, but his putts were not falling in the hole. Reid misplayed the first hole for a bogie, and first blood went to Bruce Vaughan with a birdie on 3. Disaster struck Jones on the par three 4th hole: His tee ball hit the fringe and went back into the rocks. It was visible, and he decided to play it where it was. His shot hit another rock and bounced back into the water! After a drop and two putts he was not -1. However, like a real professional Gene got a birdie on the next par five. Two holes later another birdie, and on the ninth, yet another! He was back to -4 for the tournament. Vaughan stayed at -5 and Reid recovered from his bogie to finish the front at -4.