THE MYSTERY TOURNAMENT WAS, “LITERALLY”, A SMASHING SUCCESS!!!

The mystery course turned out to be the lovely iron valley golf club in Lebanon, PA. The juice was way loose!!!
The weather was picture perfect and the bus ride was great! It was a great day for golf! Temperatures were in the mid-80’s and not a cloud in the sky. Perfect day for a perfect place! 43 “Del Valians” and guests boarded the bus at Ramblewood Country Club and made the trek to the super Iron Valley Golf Club. Special thanks to all attending members for allowing this event to go very smoothly without a hitch!
 The iron valley course was in great shape (although not quite as immaculate as in the past but still beautiful) and played exceptionally tough. The course reflected some changes since our last visit there in 2004 for the Del Val / DC Pro Duffers match which was the site of our first win versus the DC Chapter when Tom Mayfield Jr. was president. The most prominent among the changes was the beautiful new club house and the change of the two nines. The bold back nine is now the front nine and the old front nine is now the back nine. But PB Dye still had the last say as this course played difficult with the many hazard areas, trees, tight fairways and lots of water!  There was lots of stuff going on at the Mystery! Leading the pack was a surprise guest appearance by “Captain America” in person, Harold Archer! Harold performed his civic duty and came to the rescue of a fellow guest golfer. Not even a Del Valian, was in as much distress and danger on the #13 par 5 hole. Harold came to the rescue of Dennis Tunstall’s guest, Darryl Beard, and kept him from flipping his golf cart over. Apparently Darryl’s cart was on one of the major slopes leaning severely on 2 wheels and in danger of completing flipping over when Harold noticed the problem and in true superman fashion, leaped out of his own cart and quickly ran over to the Darryl’s cart and garnered a burst of “superpower strength”, and pulled the cart back down onto its 4 wheels with one quantum tug! A true modern day Captain America! Harold saved the day! You could actually see his cape flowing as here turned to his cart. Only one problem, in Harold’s haste to run to Darryl’s rescue, he forgot to apply the park brake on his own cart and unknowingly, his cart started rolling down the fairway unattended, picking up much speed and smashed directly into an unsuspecting tree on the hole doing minor damage to the cart, a small price to pay in lieu of the deed done. The cart they can fix, the life of Darryl, not so much! Great job Harold!!!!! Harold gets the Del Val “Red Badge of Courage” for his valiant effort!
 Even though it is August, there were some Del Val 2010 debut personal appearances made at the Mystery Tournament most notably, the 2010 Del Val debut of new members Kelly Murphy and Elbert Maxwell. Welcome Kelly! Welcome Elbert! Kelly ended up winning the senior longest drive contest! Ex-Del Valian (and hopefully again a Del Valian) Pete Goodwin made a guest appearance, his first of the year! The Chip-a-While Golf Club attended the Mystery Tournament in force! Represented by President Sonny Morris, Vice President Tony Wright, (who won a lot of stuff this day!), Kenny Benson, Bobby Morris and Dennis Cream. Freeway golf club also had participants in the Mystery Tournament with Skip Primus and Wayne Harris. Chuck Overbey, a guest of Jesse Bell, fared well at the mystery tournament, carding an “eagle” on par 5, hole #3! Fantastic accomplishment by Chuck!
 Also on hand was the “Jungle Juice”, compliments of Greg Ackles! Greg does a great job with this! I can’t imagine a Mystery Tournament without the juice! The juice was in such popular demand that following golf, most Del Valians hustled straight to the bus to get a cup of the popular libation forgetting entirely to turn in their scorecards and even forgetting to go to the restaurant to eat! What’s in that juice? The juice also reemerged in the parking lot at Ramblewood when we returned. Greg, Dennis Tunstall, Arnold Young, Ed Wilcox, Aaron Green, Harold Archer, Jim and Shawn Congleton, Dennis Dones, John Jones and Guy Williams all withstood getting eaten alive by mosquitoes in the evening air at Ramblewood to enjoy a little get together and juice.
 There were several bus activities such as a contest to guess the “Mystery Course”. That was won by Chip-a-While guest, Tony Wright, who guessed Iron Valley. Tony won a sleeve of Pro V1’s. We also had a Tiger Trivia contest. Where we had questions about Tiger’s career and the person with the correct answer got $1.00. The winners were:
Jim Congleton – most major championships – 14
Dennis Dones – year of first major win and age 1997, 21
Anton Burnette – most consecutive PGA tour wins 7
Anton Burnette – most PGA wins in year 9
Larry Brown – lowest 72 hole score in major 18under
Jesse Bell – lowest 18 hole score 61
Gerry Cousins- most consecutive events w/o missing cut 142
Jerry Sehested -most wins same golf course 7 Firestone CC.
Jerry Cousins, Larry Brown, Mike Holland- Countries Tiger has won – US, Scotland, Canada, Ireland, Japan, United Arab Emirates, England, Australia, Germany, Spain, Malaysia, Argentina