The first and final event of the 1994 VASC Golf Tour, The VASC Masters, took place October 12th at Butlers Golf Course. (This event is also know as the 5th Semi-Annual VASC Golf Tourney.) It was a wonderful day for play, with the sun shining brightly and temperatures in the mid 60's.
It was a star-studded field of players which included 1991 VASC TPC and 1993 VASC Masters Champion Takeo `The Golden Bear' Kanade, 1992 TPC Champion, Dean `The White Shark' Pomerleau. The field also included Chuck `E-Cheese' Thorpe, Ben `I-haven't-played-golf-in-a-year-so-give-me-a-high-handicap' Brown, Dave `Monster Driver' Simon and Dirk `Bernhardt' Langer. The only notable who was absent from the field was Katsu `Big Daddy' Ikeuchi.
This tourneyment marked the first appearance of The Golden Bear since last year's VASC Masters. At that time, as reported in this reporters Pulitzer prize winning article, The Golden Bear was near bankruptcy and was being pursued by members of organized crime for non-payment of loans. As one of the tour's most colorful and controversial players, it was good to see him back, again. (Recall two years ago when he left the course sobbing)
And after 18 grueling holes, the winners were:
Gross Champion: Dean Pomerleau
Net Champion: Todd Jochem
Longest Drive, Hole #7: Dave Simon. This was monster 569 yard
shot the bounced off the clubhouse before rolling to withing 8
inches of the cup.
Longest Drive, Hole #14: Hiroshi Kano. Off the tree, off the bird,
two skips across the lake, nothing but net. Oops, wrong sport. 498
yards of pure rip-snorting, bone cracking, MUSCLE!!!!
Closest to the Pin, #9: Andy Gruss, Sr. A dainty little 154 yard 8
iron, that gently settled 18 inches from the pin.
Closest to the Pin, #13: Ben Brown. Luck, nothing but luck.
Best performance by a German: Dirk Langer
Most Munificent Benefactor: TK
There was a bit of controversy clouding The Shark's Gross Score victory. It was rumored that Todd Jochem shot a 89, giving him the gross championship as well and a record setting 53 net score. But before the scorecards were signed, a reliable source overhead Pomerleau, who is one of Jochem's advisors, begging him to add 17 strokes to his score so that he could save face and win the gross championship. In return for this favor, Pomerleau is to sign off on Jochem's PhD Thesis within the next 8 months or pay $1,000,000.00. (Coincidently, the 106 reported by Jochem put him into a tie with Chuck Thorpe, his other advisor. Could this be a coverup????) This reporter is monitoring the unraveling drama *very* closely.
Scores Gross Net ----------------------------------- Andy Gruss, Sr. 87 -- * Dean Pomerleau 90 77 + Steve Chen 90 -- * Takeo Kanade 92 80 Atsushi Yoshida 92 -- Dave Simon 102 79 Ben Brown 103 79 Hiroshi Kano 106 -- Chuck Thorpe 106 84 Todd Jochem 106 70 @ Dirk Langer 112 85 Andy Gruss, Jr. 113 -- Michi Uenohara 120 -- Ryohei Miyagawa 147 --+ Gross Score champion