Class News
Chris Getman '64 reports on the fall golf outing
Our annual Class of 1964 fall golf outing transpired on Thursday, October 11, 2018 at the beautiful and renowned Yale Golf Course.
The photo at right is from the tee at the dreaded par 3 ninth hole, 190 yards over water to an impossible green. This hole has been ranked among the 100 most difficult holes in the United States.
In 1988, Golf Magazine ranked Yale as the 71st most difficult course in the world. Golfweek ranked Yale at #35 on its 2013 list of best classic courses. In 2011, Golf Magazine ranked the course #71 of the top 100 courses in the United States. In 2010, Golfweek named it the best campus course in the United States.
Below is Chris Getman's fake news regarding the fall golf outing.
CLASS OF '64 ENHANCED BY TRADE JUST BEFORE DEADLINE
The Class of 1964 strongly enhanced its financial stability by making a trade with the vaunted class of 1954 shortly before the trade deadlines.
The weather forecast was for perfect 1964 golf outing weather, a monsoon with 30-knot winds, serious downpours, and an ultimate accumulation of six inches of rain. Given this prediction, Neil Hoffmann was elected chairman for life of the event.
Sadly Neil could not attend given the illness of his wife, Nancy, who is recovering well. We all send her our best wishes and hopeful thoughts.
Tony Lee, a veteran of coordinating 1964 events in challenging weather, agreed to assume control of the event.
Nineteen golfers signed up and ten showed up, including Charley Sawyer, a venerable member of the class of 1963. Neil had an excuse, Ted Jones was stranded in Boston, having flown in from Chicago and been promised a ride with Lee and Padley.
Because of the forecast, people teed off before the announced noon tee time. Ward and Tracy Wickwire played by themselves and were able to squeeze in eight holes before we were called off the course due to heavy rain. Butch Hetherington showed up but then headed home, predicting that if there were so much as a drop of rain later in the afternoon, he and Rebecca would not make it to Mory’s.
The foursome of Evans, Sawyer, Arons, and Barnard started on 10 and played seven holes. Because Barnard had a floating ball he had saved for 9, he was able to rooster-tail it through a puddle on 16 into the hole for a 12. The other three had their balls stopped dead.
Being the only two left, Getman and Norman started together. Each bogeyed 1 and 2. They were joined on the third tee by the perennially late Galvin, who in typical fashion missed the group picture but claimed to have parred 1 and birdied 2. Dave Lindsay caught up with us on the fourth tee, having posted par, par, birdie on 1 to 3. The four of us played 4, 5, and 6 in fine style and in firm possession of the lead when the whistle blew summoning us home. It was a clear victory which was not disputed.
It was noted with amusement that the “floating mulligans” we award ourselves on each side were generously applied, both strategically and literally. Evans was in a six-inch-deep puddle on 12, and rather than try the Jean van de Velde technique, employed the ‘floater.” Norman was able to save par on five using the same strategy, lifting from a puddle in the middle of the Coney-Island-size beach which surrounds the green.
However, once we were back at Mory’s, where we were joined by Terry Holcombe and Don Edwards and the outcomes were being discussed, it became clear that we are (were) a class full of wimps. Those who signed up but didn’t show up fall into that category. They are Lee, Edwards, Hetherington, Howell, Tully, Padley (who with Lee stranded Jones in Boston), and Putzel, whose collection of bricks is well recorded in the Mory’s courtyard.
At dinner, it was unanimously decided that since we were enjoying perfect ’64 outing weather, wimpdom in our class will not be tolerated.
Edwards was summarily dismissed from dinner without comment.
Holcombe, given his vast institutional knowledge, noted that the inter-class trading deadline expired the next night (the 12th) at midnight, and citing his close ties with the GM for the Class of 1954, dialed his cell and caught him at a bachelor party. Not bad for an 87-year-old. In dulcet tones and with a persuasive voice, Terry was able to trade the ’64 wimps to the Class of 1954 in exchange for Charlie Johnson, Joel Smilow, Russ Reynolds, Harris Ashton and Irving Jensen. His rationale was that enlisting those guys into our class would allow them to continue to work their magic for Yale for an extra ten years, while the wimps as members of the Class of 1954 would vanish from the face of the earth ten years before their time was up. Putzel’s bricks will remain as part of our 55th reunion gift.
“Good riddance!” shouted Lindsay.
The newly appointed 55th-reunion special-gifts chairman, Steve Norman, heaved a huge sigh of relief, and thanked GM Holcombe profusely for the likelihood that our class will set its eleventh consecutive reunion record.
A reception for Messrs. Reynolds, Johnson, Jensen, Ashton, and Smilow to welcome them into our class — Yale’s greatest — will be held at a time to be mutually agreed upon.