HAPPY NEW YEAR

Broken Joe
Jan 2, 2020
3 min read

2020 will be Broken Joe Golf’s 6th year and our Winter Classic Championship will turn 9. Wow, how time flies when you’re herding cats.

In those 6 years, we have created a pretty good handicap system (thanks to our Deputy Commissioner), and like the PGA, we have our own;

* Four Majors

* Five different kinds of Tournaments

* Fed Up Cup

* Rider / President’s Cup

* And a Winter Classic Championship to finish the year out.

For those of you that don’t know and for those that may have forgotten, Broken Joe Golf’s founding principles are:

Commitment

Competition

Camaraderie

The definition of COMMITMENT is:

(1) The state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc. Similar word would be dedication, allegiance, loyalty, and faithfulness.

(2) An engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action. Similar word would be; responsibility, obligation, and duty.

When we talk about “commitment” we are talking about commitment to the game, the schedule, and to the other members. Remember that Broken Joe Golf is not a “public” group, you had to know a member and then be invited to join, and that requires some responsibility on your part.

Broken Joe Golf’s season used to be 30 plus weeks but we understand the changing needs of our Golfers and we have moved to an “every other week” schedule and we now play on Sunday instead of Saturday. While not everyone was excited about these changes it is accepted because of our commitment.

Yes, sometimes the Broken Joe Golf season seems long, especially if you are having a tough year, but we only play a total of about 15 weeks. That breaks down to 10 weeks of the regular season, 3 weeks of the Fed Up Cup, a week for the Rider / President’s Cup and then a week for the Winter Classic Championship.

I don’t expect everyone to play every week. I know that we each have our own life with work, families, and houses with yards that all require attention at some point. What I do need is some prior planning on your part and some communication from you when you have something else planned, especially for events that require you to play with a partner or against another Golfer. When you don’t do your part, the trophy becomes a “participation” trophy.

The definition of COMPETITION is:

(1) 1the activity or condition of competing. Similar words: rivalry, competitiveness, contesting.

(2) an event or contest in which people compete. Similar words: contest, tournament, match.

(3) the person or people with whom one is competing, especially in a commercial or sporting arena; the opposition. Similar words: opposition, opposing side, other side, other team

From Wikipedia: “Competition within, between, and among species is one of the most important forces in biology, especially in the field of ecology.[2]”

So, Competition is good but if at the end of the day it doesn’t work for you, you can always stay for the camaraderie.

The definition of CAMARADERIE is:

(1) mutual trust and friendship among people who spend time together. Similar words: friendship, comradeship and fellowship

I don’t think there are any one of the Broken Joe Golf members that I don’t enjoy playing golf with. Each member brings a different and unique perspective to the game. I find that to be refreshing (most of the time). This is true for the golfers that are a lot better than me and the golfers that may not be very competitive (right now).

The Deputy Commissioner and I will be “talking” about 2020 handicaps, schedules and fees.