Class News
Chris Getman '64 reports on the golf outing and the bear
Our annual Class of 1964 Spring golf outing, organized by Ted Jones ’64, resumed its storied history on Thursday, June 2, 2022 after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic. The venue, as usual, was 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.
Our trusty reporter, Chris Getman ’64, filed the following story. For a more prosaic account, see Ted Jones’s report.
Official Report of the Class of 1964 Outing
by Chris Getman, cub reporter
June 2, 2022
The class gathered for the first time in over two years. It was great to be together again. The weather was overcast and organizer Ted Jones looked apprehensively at the sky, worried that if it didn’t rain he might be relieved of his newfound enjoyable responsibility.
Jones, Getman, Wickwire, Jan Truebner, Norman, Hetherington, Tully, Heyworth, Evans, Kalayjian, Lindsay, and Padley (left to right) posed for the group photo. Post joined the last group on the second hole.
The foursome of Evans, Kalayjian, Truebner, and Getman graciously accepted the winners’ trophy, and were also determined to be the best-looking foursome as a result of having Truebner in their group.
Few noticed, but when Lindsay saw that he was in a foursome with Norman and Wickwire, along with Tully, and therefore saw his chances of being in the winners’ circle evaporate, he quickly excused himself to make a phone call.
The format was “two best ball net.”
Norman, Wickwire, Tully, and Lindsay went first and quickly opened territory between themselves and the second group — Kalayjian, Evans, Truebner, and Getman. The final group — Padley, Hetherington, Heyworth, and Jones — resplendent in his outfit from his cover photo of GQ Magazine (see photo) were joined by Post on the second hole.
Even though we were the only groups on the course, our GPS-equipped carts — given the wonders of modern technology — kept yelling at us to speed up and would shut us down when we ventured into unmarked territory. By the time the Evans foursome reached the 16th fairway, it was sixteen minutes behind regular pace and being threatened with bodily harm from the Marshall unless it speeded up. There was no one within sight either in front of or behind the group, but the constant harassment and shutdowns were consistent and irritating.
True to the weatherman’s prediction, it did start to rain as the groups were in the home stretch. Jones later admitted with pride that his rain dance had worked.
At the same time that the rain had begun, the Director of the Course, Peter Palacious, approached the Evans foursome, which was near the sixteenth green, and told them, as the bearer (get it?) of bad news, to go directly to the clubhouse. He said that a bear had been spotted on the 17th hole and produced a video to confirm the sighting. It was noticed that the Lindsay foursome had already completed its round. Equipped with a titanium hand mashie, purchased from Amazon and delivered directly to the club, and a premium eraser from the Yale bookstore, the Evans foursome was two under with the double best ball format and confident of victory. “I can’t bear it,” grumbled Kalayjian, who was having a great round. Reluctantly they started to head in when the bear appeared in person heading down the rough on the 16th and then crossing the fairway heading up to the 13th tee.
Slowly things began to fall into place. The folks at Meta, a/k/a Facebook, wondered about the post from Lindsay to the director of the Bridgeport Zoo asking what it would cost to rent a bear. They decided to leave it up, but also noticed a wire transfer of $500 from Lindsay’s bank to the zoo. A post back to Lindsay noted that the bear, named Ivantu C. U. Bear, was well trained and could be released once the Norman / Wickwire foursome had cleared the area of release. “It was our only hope for victory,” sighed Lindsay.
Curiously, once everything had settled down, Peter Palacious asked Lindsay for the contact information for his friend at the Bridgeport Zoo. “It might be a better way to speed things up than threatening people through that stupid GPS technology,” he mused, as he signed Ivantu to a full season contract with bonus.
We then adjourned to Mory’s where we were blessed with the company of Melissa Padley, Dottie Evans, and Marcia Kalayjian. The food was good, and the company was better.
We’re looking forward to a rendezvous on the Cape in September, courtesy of Evans, Capodilupo, and the Alpine Mountain Club.