"You can't even see Jim down in that bunker, but this year, they forgot to break his glasses."- An Oral History of the 2023 Channels Cup
"We're kicking the shit out of them, this is awesome!"
This is the third iteration of what is now a tradition between me and my internet friends. I “met” (some of) this group of loveable weirdos first in a college football pool that had run for years in the 2010s, before going to work at Paste Magazine in 2016 under the pool’s commissioner, Golf Digest writer Shane Ryan—who writes an annual blurb about The Channels Cup in Golf Digest. Here is what he wrote this year that serves as a great “too long, didn’t read” for the Oral History:
Our love for golf has been put to the test this year, but I'm lucky to have an annual reminder of how the game, stripped to its essentials, can transcend all the unpleasantness. It's called The Channels Cup, and is probably just like thousands of other Ryder Cup-style events organized by hackers around the globe, but this one is mine, and this year I needed it more than ever. It was a spiritual palate cleanser, and not because of the competition; my team, Carolinas & Canada, won so convincingly that it left the bad guys, Team World, in a state of utter humiliation from which I'm not sure they'll recover. (They've had their moments in the past, but none of their players write for Golf Digest, so that information is currently unavailable.) I'm not even sure it's about "friendship," although it is definitely a little bit about friendship.
Instead, I'd like to use the word "community." This year, my friend Lawton hosted us in Spartanburg, SC, and went all out with insane catered dinners, various gifts including personalized stickers full of inside jokes made by his genius wife Rachael, and a Saturday night hangout at a bar where an inside joke that would take too long to explain was featured on the marquee. I took care of the courses—thank you, Village Greens and Links O'Tryon. Zac booked a house. Chris gave a speech. He and Ivan made hype videos. Colin designed the live updating spreadsheet. Joanna ran the media ops (yes, really). Jake is writing the oral history (yes, really). People who weren't even there made videos, and others brought beer and liquor and [redacted]. It was a giant community event that became huge, to us, by virtue of total participation between people who love each other. But golf was the conduit—golf was the excuse, because in various ways we all love golf too.
Don't underestimate the conduit; it's the thing that lets special bonds flourish, and I don't think any game has quite the same mix of drama and romance and spirit. If you feel down about the state of the sport at the highest levels, please, go back to the lowest levels and let golf remind you of what it is.
In late 2019, Shane and a few others started a Slack channel just to chat about sports, as our contact had been restricted to various pool e-mail chains at that point. Fast forward four-plus years later and our community is ~100 people strong with nearly that many channels too, spread all across North America. It’s a truly special place that helped get all of us through the worst of the pandemic, and now it functions like a digital social club amongst internet turned real-life friends.
In 2021, we had the idea to stage a Ryder Cup-style tournament, and a bunch of us flew to the world-renowned Hillandale golf course in Durham, North Carolina to play. A significant chunk of the Slack is based out of the Carolinas, and the first year we divided the teams along Confederate lines of the Carolinas versus everyone else (Team World). Team Carolinas won a closer-than-it-looked battle 13 to 7 in the inaugural event of what we were calling The Channels Cup.
In 2022, with travel restrictions lifting for our compatriots up north, we decided to honor the memory of 1812 and let our White House-conflagrating friends join their Confederate counterparts to establish Team Carolinas and Canada (Team C&C) and Team World (TW) as the sides in this titanic battle for Slack supremacy. I put together the first Channels Cup Oral History for it, detailing a dramatic contest that Team World won 12-8 where I experienced perhaps my best sports-playing memory of my life, going from an 0-4 record the year prior to 4-0.
What began as a twinkle in Shane’s eye is now the culmination of the Slack’s golf season, as we all now spend the entire year trying to get better so we can all kick each other’s asses at what is functionally our Super Bowl of golf every late summer/early fall.
The 2023 Channels Cup began on Thursday, September 14th with a practice round at Village Greens in Gramling, South Carolina. We played Scramble and Alternate Shot at Village Greens on Friday, then Fourball and Singles on Saturday at Links O’Tryon in Campobello, South Carolina. We had planned to play our traditional Sunday “Sickos” round for the people who think 72 holes of golf (plus a practice 18) is too little golf for one weekend, but it got rained out.
Joanna served as media/Team World mom for the event while Rachael served as media/Team C&C mom. They filmed interviews, fit checks where we detailed our outfits and filmed snippets of golf highlights for the Cup’s YouTube channel OWN Plus—all of which will be embedded in the text below.
This is the oral history of the 2023 Channels Cup and the social events weaved between it. The only background uninitiated readers need to know is that each team had a really good golfer with the ability to break par every time they stepped on the course: Jamieson for Team World and Colin for Team C&C. Everyone else’s average score ranged from the high 70s to the low 100s-110s, and team captains Lawton and Chris tried to match everyone up as best they could to ensure a competitive Cup (as you’ll see, despite their efforts, that uhhhhhh didn’t happen!).
Everything else you need to know, my excellent storytellers will tell you all about below, as they made my copy/paste job here incredibly easy. Each match is listed in chronological order from when it teed off, with Team C&C teams listed on the left and Team World on the right of every section, with who won by what score in parentheses (ie: won 2&1 means that the team won by 2 with 1 hole left to play).
You’ll occasionally see me jump in after the fact to clarify something (or vent tbh) with an Editor’s Note, but everything else with my name on it was submitted in a Google Form along with the rest of the crew before I saw anyone else’s responses. People will reference moments from last year’s Channels Cup, and I have embedded hyperlinks to those specific matches if you want to take a jog down memory lane. This is long, about 31,000 words, but like I said last year: this will be the quickest 30,000+ words you have ever read.
Now that I’ve blabbered enough to set this all up, let’s get to the story of the 2023 Channels Cup.
Thursday Night Hang
Anthony: Thursday night was incredible. Not sure how we're gonna top that, but we must.
Chris: The gathering Thursday night was incredible. Noodles knocked it out of the park with the BBQ order, and it was so great to see everyone. It was my first time meeting several Slackers in person, truly joyous. But I was a bit of a nervous wreck, because I had an elaborate joke planned for my captain's speech. I had seen an incredible joke on the Kelce brothers' podcast, originally told by a rookie at the training camp for the Philadelphia Eagles, where the punchline was a dig at their coach, Doug Pederson. I knew this was perfect to repurpose for Channels Cup opening night, with Shane as the butt of the joke instead. The speech came, I delivered everything perfectly if I do say so myself, and the joke killed. Unfortunately, either this was a curse on Team World, or we were about to get dumptrucked no matter what I said that night. I guess at least I got a good joke off.
Heath: As a means of fellowship, Chris made a delightfully droll joke about Shane having a micropenis (we all laughed and laughed!), and then after some more fine fellowship we went home.
Shane: As a man fond of his victuals, I will not soon forget the unbelievable food on Thursday night Lawton had catered (my heavens, the pickled vegetables), or Chris' speech about me having a small penis, or the giant painting of a horse. But most of all, I'll remember the incredible swag Rachael produced for us; she was the unsung hero of this Channels Cup, and her creativity and buy-in upped the experience by a quantifiable 36%. To have her enthusiastically on board was magnificent.
Drew E: There was some excellent BBQ.
Gary: I remember talking to the ladies who were catering the event and found out one of them was from where I grew up in PA. BTW, food was great—super choice Noodles/Rachael.
Jim: Thursday night - the catered BBQ was excellent; pulled brisket, sliced brisket, smoked turkey, mac and cheese, collard greens, and pinto beans. Excellent banana pudding for dessert plus someone (Rachael?) baked a delicious bundt apple cake to celebrate Joanna’s birthday. I slept extremely well Thursday night and popped a couple of anti-inflammatories each morning the rest of the weekend. I felt great Saturday night even after playing two rounds that day.
Gary: I encouraged Chris to play De’Andre Swift in fantasy on Thursday night, and he was quite pleased as Eagles beat Vikings and Swift went off. Joanna continues to be a rock star. So appreciative of the time and effort she puts into the weekend, and I thank her so much for her outstanding breakfast sandwiches.
Drew E: Enjoyed getting the swag and seeing Joanna accept her gifts from Team C&C.
Jamieson: I remember the barbecue was fucking amazing—I’ve been to Lewis in Charleston, but nothing beats a massive, buffet-style spread of incredible barbecue.
Jacob: I still dream about that barbecue.
Heath: Thursday I was struck by the...relative difference in our accommodations. Our house was nice and all, but I was not super-looking forward to sleeping in the top bunk of a twin bed. But I figured hey, we're in central South Carolina, we probably have the nicest house for 150 square miles. Then we got to the Team World house. My main thought was, "they're gonna be well-rested. Might not be a great start for Team C&C tomorrow." Little did I know that it would make Team World coddled, soft...complacent. While our more spartan housing fit our take-no-prisoners mindset that only a truly hungry squad, still carrying the wounds from last year's shellacking, could muster. Anyway, the Thursday evening spread was lovely (the Strouds and everyone involved crushed it with the food all weekend). While I wasn't looking forward to trying to sleep in a tiny bed, at least I knew I could lay there peacefully for a goodly while, as I wasn't part of the first round of matches the next day.
Session 1: Scramble
Jim: I wasn’t playing but I was up for a bacon and egg biscuit and coffee—all fabulous.
Heath: When Lawton woke me up yelling down the stairs at 7:15 or so "Heath, it's time to go!!!" it didn't seem to bode well for our Cup morning (seeing as Lawton had, you know, made the pairings)...but little did I know, it would be the last false step any of us would make on Friday.
Jim: The players were about to leave, and I noticed Heath wasn’t with them, so someone went to wake him up. Heath also wasn’t playing — sorry Heath.
Heath: When I finally went upstairs at a far more reasonable hour, I discovered that Rachael had delightfully made everyone biscuits! I also discovered that I had apparently carried the whole "I'm a Jew" thing a bit too far. For while everyone else had gotten bacon egg and cheese biscuits, my biscuit was tragically sans pork. While I am of Jewish descent, I am decidedly non-practicing, and I do loves my bacons! I expressed my sadness to Jim (who also had the morning off), and that was when I discovered that the power of Team C+C could not be toppled this weekend: Jim told me there was bacon in the fridge!! Rachael + Lawton attempted to honor my imaginary dietary restrictions, while Jim was able to solve my plight by...looking in the fridge? Truly, there was a force (some might say love) within this team that would be impossible for Team World to overcome this day. Plus, some other stuff happened.
Jim: Heath was very forgiving, so we drove to the course together.
Heath: Canadians are so nice, I don't care what you may have heard about them.
Shane: I want to say a few words about Team C&C's preparation for the Channels Cup. First off, Colin is an absolute psychopath, and I mean that in the best way possible. In the Team C&C leadership room, Drew and I are lineup crunchers, and Lawton is the steady hand that kept us from going over the deep end, but Colin was the mad scientist, producing up to eight alternate lineups for each session to be deployed based on what Team World did, and mapping out our advantages or disadvantages based on handicaps and formulas to apply them to each format. There was a "controversy" about "ringers" (read: people who had already played for Team C&C in the past), but the truth is we had the Szemenyei Brainpower working for us at top speed. That's 1-0 to Team C&C before a shot was even hit.
Jamieson: I know Team CnC is going to talk all about their incredible matchup-making abilities, and look, did we have the same number-crunching apparatus they did? No. But we did come out of the matchmaking phase feeling pretty good about where we stood. We had a lot of guys who had been talking all season about playing well, so it really did feel like we had the talent advantage. I know people are going to talk about ringers, and, yeah, we did push back on some of their additions, but I think anyone who followed The Channels Cup channel all season would think, as Team CnC did, that we were in good position.
Galen: I remember being benched!
Shane: Second, at the risk of patting myself on the back, I want to emphasize the importance of the C&C propaganda machine. Two months before the Channels Cup, people thought of Chris as a fun, respectable, nice guy. By the time we teed off, about 20 match previews later, everyone in the Slack knew that he was both a bumbling buffoon leading his team to slaughter, and an odious sex pervert. 2-0 to Team C&C.
Heath: I enjoyed riding around with Jim watching other people play!
Jim: Heath and I went out to see some of the matches—especially to see Aaron hit it “comically far”. Saw his unique pre-shot routine and really good tee shot on #13, although I wouldn’t call it comically far. Maybe it’s an altitude thing.
Aaron: Ivan, drunk after the scramble, had to use my phone to call his wife. So I have that going for me.
Ivan: [tbd, need more time to process]
Dan: I stayed in bed.
Galen: I remember waiting until Friday morning to drive from Durham to Sparty-Hard. Along the way, my 1996 Tacoma started to overheat between Charlotte and Gastonia. I had to pull off at some hick gas station with confederate flags to buy coolant. After that it was 40 mph on the highway all the way. Got to village just in time to see the last group (Matt and Drew I think?) closing out their match on #18.
Shane: Also, Ivan's hype video was pure fire and made them pee their pants. 3-0.
Shane & Ivan (won 2&1) vs. Zac & Gary
Shane: We planned for Ivan and I going out first months in advance, and I thought it would be a perfect way to start the Channels Cup, running it back from the match at Hillandale when we got the team's first win.
Zac (AKA Rascal): I arrived to the course with Jake feeling great. Most of Team World was there, and Team C&C was missing. However, there was another tournament going off at the same time we were, and they had sort of taken over the course, which put us in a bit of bind. Team World had worked on a pre-game stretch routine to do in unison and then have it flourish at the end by doing the "Team C&C" warmup move where we all pantomimed having our way (carnally) with C&C.
Shane: We'd also been playing together a bunch against some quality teams like Matt, Galen, and Drew throughout the summer at Hillandale, and while we didn't win many of those matches, we always kept it close. Plus, we've competed together and against each other for so long that it felt like a very comfortable way to start, and Ivan's always been a gamer.
Zac: But this other tournament was already all over the range, and C&C wasn't even all here yet to see it, and I was forced to make a move that I've regretted to this day. I cancelled the warmup. I should have had faith in my team and faith in the humor of it, but I just thought it might land wrong with all these South Carolinian Insurance salesmen. And I regret that.
As for the golf—I remember Gary and I got off to a slow start.
Gary: Rascal and I could not consistently get off the tee. The only non-par 3 that we hit a drive in the fairway and didn't win the hole on was the first hole, where Shane/Ivan made birdie.
Shane: We started out strong with wins on the first two holes, but I had a memory of what happened in Cape Cod after Colin and I started out 3-up, and I wasn't about to get complacent.
Editor’s note: If you watch only one video embedded in this oral history, make it this one, just for Joanna relentlessly making fun of Ivan for his pink ball.
Zac: Shane and Ivan were playing well, and Gary and I just weren't.
Gary: Then on #4 we had a chance to win, but we hit poor chips near the green and Ivan hit a great bunker shot, and the hole was halved with bogeys. On #5 I jacked one OB (I did this each time I played this hole including during the practice round) and Rascal topped his drive. Now they're up 2. On #6 one of Shane/Ivan (I think Shane) hit a great shot maybe 9 feet from the flag, and we put ours on the green and were lucky to walk away with a half thanks to Rascal hitting a great putt to gimme range.
Shane: But it didn't matter; things started slipping in a big way around the seventh hole. For the next six holes, I have endless memories of Gary absolutely sticking irons, and Rascal making huge putt after huge putt.
Gary: Next on #7, Rascal hits an absolute bomb off the tee, and we win the hole with a 4. Down one. On #8 Shane/Ivan were in trouble to the right of the green, but scrambled to tie the hole as we three-putted from the front of the green.
Shane: I hit what might have been the best short pitch of my entire Channels Cup on #9 to keep us 1-up into the turn, but we couldn't stop their momentum, and another perfect approach by Gary on #10, followed by a great putt, squared the match.
Gary: We had been playing better since hole #4 but couldn’t seem to get over the hump. Then on #10 I hit my best drive of the day and put my second shot on the green, then ran in the bird.
Shane: The dagger for us came when Ivan hit a beautiful iron on the par-3 11th to maybe 3 feet.
Ivan: Number 11 may well have been the low point of The Channels Cup for me. (And that includes the hissyfit I threw at the end of fourball, about which everyone, as I understand it, has agreed never to talk.) Like so many low points, it started with a fleeting moment of false glory. It was a 6-iron, I remember that. And I remember that it was perfectly mishit. Just a thing of grotesque beauty. It rolled to within, I dunno, four feet.
Gary: I hit one on the green, but we have a long putt, which neither of us hits well. Rascal drains the six-footer for par and puts the pressure on Shane/Ivan.
Shane: But we couldn't sink the birdie putt and settled for a half.
Ivan: Were it not for some clutch play down the stretch, which I honestly do not remember, we may well have lost the dang thing.
Gary: On #12 Rascal hit a drive in the fairway on the long par 4, and I piped my second shot short of the green and then hit a chip on to the green. Ivan/Shane were on in three as well, with a relatively short putt for par.
Shane: More miserable putting lost us #12, and suddenly we were down.
Gary: Rascal does it again, and drains a downhill sidewinder for par. All of sudden we’re 1 up.
Ivan: Call it whatever you want — Quartergate, Tooniegate, The Great Gary/Rascal Runaround: It was a hell of a strategy, and it almost worked.
Shane: The mood was quite dark in the C&C cart. Throughout this, Gary and Rascal were definitely chirping...but not at us. They were going at each other!
Ivan: It was diabolical.
Zac: On #12, Gary and I got into it a bit because he wanted to tell me the ideal way to mark the ball as I was standing over a putt, and I got angry at him.
Shane: When we were 2-up after 2 and they were bickering like an old married couple, I thought we might win the thing in 10 holes.
Zac: I ignored him, stepped up, and made a 10-footer to win the hole and then just yelled at him "LET ME PUTT THE DAMN BALL".
Shane: By the end of the 12th hole, when we were down for the first time and they were still arguing, I told Ivan, "I think their fighting is hurting us more than it's hurting them." It was like they got strength from it. The argument was about where to place the marker on a putt, something very trivial, but they walked to 13th tee annoyed at each other, and Ivan and I were annoyed at the world.
Ivan: To have coordinated a premeditated, totally fabricated intra-team argument about how best to mark a ball on the green, and to have correctly assumed that it would hurt Shane and me more than it would hurt them, and to have followed through on it while keeping a straight face — I mean, that's impressive.
Zac: Gary and I laughed and we high fived and went into #13 with the momentum.
Shane: #13 was the turning point.
Zac: But #13, that son of bitch, had different plans all week long.
Shane: Rascal hit one of his patented fading drives that looked like it was absolutely perfect for the hole, bending to the right around the corner.
Zac: I remember Gary and I both crushed fades that should have been perfect.
Shane: But when we approached,
Zac: We couldn't find mine, but found Gary's in a less than desirable position on a root of a tree.
Shane: It was nowhere to be found, and must have been too short.
Gary: Rascal and I went back and forth as to whether I should hit a shot that would leave us 100 or so yards in the fairway. Ultimately, we made the ill-fated decision that I would hit a three-wood and try to cut it.
Shane: Ivan and I got up close to the green on our second, they ended in the woods off Gary's drive, and Ivan hit a terrific pitch that gave us the hole.
Gary: On #14, Shane piped his drive down the middle. I proceed to hit my drive into the woods on the right and Rascal tops his. We get on the green in three, but fail to make a 20-footer. Shane/Ivan get on the green in two and make a par to go 1 up.
Shane: Which brought us to #15, the best hole of our match and probably the best hole of my entire Cup.
Gary: On this par three, Shane hits a nice tee shot on the green about 11 feet away. We're up and Rascal hits first and his shot goes astray. He expressed his displeasure to me that I was standing behind him and it affected his shot. I felt really bad.
Shane: I had a feeling that if I could stick an iron on the par-3, we might be able to put the match away, and I did—to about 8 feet. Rascal got into trouble on his tee shot, but then Gary—fucking Gary—
Gary: Anyway, I proceed to hit my tee shot inside Shane's shot about 8 feet away.
Shane: —stuck another iron and it was actually better than mine, to about five feet.
Gary: Shane was tasting blood after his shot and thought they had put us on the ropes.
Shane: I couldn't believe it. But then I walked up and sank the putt, and Ivan and I both just let loose—real screams.
Gary: This got even stronger after Shane let out a roar after I think Ivan (might have been Shane) drained their birdie putt so much so that it got the attention of Lawton and Chris playing #12.
Shane: A total tension release, and a few people noticed in other matches. Gary missed his putt, but then Rascal stepped up…
Gary: And then Rascal—our putting ace—drained his, which led to us letting out a roar of our own which had the effect of letting our captain on #12 know that we were still in it.
Shane: …and buried his. Gary yelled right back at us, and rightfully so. It was an amazing response by them.
Gary: Hole tied, still down 1. On #16 Ivan hit a perfect tee shot short of the creek. Rascal and I both hit bad tee shots and we proceed to somehow get the ball close in three and just miss a par.
Shane: We halved #16 when Ivan and I couldn't make a putt, but on #17, with them in trouble, I hit my shot of the day with a drive that stopped maybe 20 yards from the hole.
Gary: We played our drive to the left in the woods.
Shane: Ivan hit a beautiful pitch onto the green, and by the time they got there, we never had to putt.
Gary: We were unable to mount a serious challenge on the hole and lost the match 2&1.
Ivan: The arguing didn't end up working out for them — 18 to 2 final score and all — but it's still impressive.
Shane: The first point was on the board.
Gary: I was proud of the way we fought back to take the lead. We managed to hang around in the match due to my strong iron play and Rascal's great putting. Our tee game was our downfall. Shane/Ivan were solid and earned a hard-fought point.
Ivan: Overall, top marks for Shane and me, setting the tone as we did. A+. Go us.
Colin & Aaron (won 4&2) vs. Anthony & Bobby
Aaron: This was the only session I played on account of the High Holidays.
Bobby: Aaron does, indeed, hit the ball comically far.
Anthony: I'd had a really shaky Thursday practice and hit a couple of completely wiped irons from perfect positions. I did a range sesh afterwards and by the time I started on Friday, a nice blister had started to form under my ring finger.
Bobby: Anthony and I knew that while Colin is extremely good, he wasn't going to hit good shots 100% of the time. And when Colin didn't hit a good shot, we knew we'd need Aaron to also not hit a good shot. This did not happen.
Aaron: Things I remember are Colin turning our energy around with something called "Morgan Waller," which is a type of music. I also remember hitting a very clutch drive on the hole with the power lines, even though we halved it I think.
Anthony: Bobby and I should've taken hole #1, but Aaron hit two really good shots to give them a better birdie look.
Aaron: Colin was an extremely soothing presence who encouraged me to use a good, easy tempo on my swing. I definitely hit many shots in the air and to reasonable distances instead of way too far.
Anthony: We split with pars after my birdie putt lipped out, but it was a missed opportunity. Bobby won #2 and put us 1-up. On the #3 tee box I posted in the Team World channel "Bobby Fucking Gottfried"... and #3 would be the only hole where I had a lead for the entire weekend.
Anthony: Colin & Aaron wound up taking holes #3-#7, and only after Bobby understandably refused to entertain a media request were we able to claw back two straight holes to be 2-down at the turn.
Shane: We were checking the scoreboard throughout our match, and were pleased but not surprised to see Colin and Aaron doing so well.
Anthony: Bobby poured in a treacherous par putt on that impossible #11 green to get us back to 1-down. On #12, both teams had tricky par putts, and only C&C converted theirs, and this proved to be the turning point of the match. C&C gutted out a half on #13 after Bobby and I had been in prime position, and then Colin stuck his approach on #14 to gimme range to put them up 3 with 4 to play. #15 was a shitshow.
Bobby: Aaron hit a lot of good shots and saved Colin on more than one occasion.
Anthony: Colin and Bobby rinsed it off the tee, Aaron topped his, but importantly, ended up short of the creek, and I kept mine dry but pulled it very far left. We failed to take advantage and let C&C halve the hole to go dormie. A perfect tee shot from Aaron led to Colin having the green light to blast his drive on #16 well over the creek, and it was all over after we were forced to go around a tree on our approach and Colin hit his to a few feet.
Bobby: Colin, as expected, played extremely well and his approach game was incredible.
Anthony: It felt like we got overpowered, but there was a lot we left on the table.
Aaron: It was a joy to defeat Anthony and Bobby for a variety of reasons, none of which I will share publicly. The post-round sandwiches were also very good, and I was sad to leave so soon, but as a righteous man I could not shirk my responsibilities to myself, my family, and the God of the Hebrews.
Drew E & Matt (won 1 up) vs. Jamieson & Jacob
Jamieson: Going into Friday morning, I was feeling pretty good. I had played well in the practice round, shooting a 74 at Village Links. My takeaway was that it was an interesting course, but that it would take driver out of my hands quite a bit, which would reduce our advantage. I had added a significant amount of length during 2023 using The Stack system, so I was pretty confident with driver.
Drew E: I was expecting this to be the toughest match I’d have all Cup, and it was. Of course, facing Jamieson is always difficult as he is TW’s best player, but also adding Jake as his partner—who's around the green skills complement Jamieson’s superb long game very well—makes it quite a formidable pairing (referred to as JWs going forward).
Jacob (AKA Jake): The nerves. The Channels Cup nerves, man. Year one I was nervous mostly just about meeting most of these folks in person for the first time and not wanting to faceplant in front of them, and the second year I came in more nervous than before knowing I had to get off the solo 0-4 schneid and reclaim my manhood. I figured now that I had my TCC moment in the sun and secured my legacy, I could take a breather and let other folks take The Channels Cup spotlight for once. I just wanted to be a simple man with a simple life and like a 2-1-1 record.
Jamieson: I’m sure it’ll get lost in the outcome, but I do remember feeling pretty good about our team going into the week, and even going into the first matches I felt good.
Jacob: But if anything, I was more nervous to open this year and I truly cannot explain why. Maybe it was because some part of me knew what was coming.
Jamieson: On driver holes, the strategy between Jake and myself ended up being him getting us into the fairway, and me whaling at a driver to get us down the fairway. My worry, though, was that this match would be a repeat of 2022’s scramble match between me and Gary against Drew and Johnny, just with Jake and Kutz subbed in for Gary and Johnny.
Drew E: My partner Matt Kutz and I play often at Hillandale so I am very familiar with his strengths—long off tee, consistent irons play—so I did feel if we both played well, we could give them a match.
Jacob: Despite being paired with the legendary Jamieson, I knew we were in for a big-time fight. I had played against Drew in the opening round of The Channels Cup last year and it took my best 9 holes ever to help get a lead on him and Lawton before Chris put us on cruise control on the back 9, and all summer long we had been regaled in the TCC channel with tales of Kutz’s golf prowess. Like last year, I knew this opening match would go a long way towards determining who won The Channels Cup.
Drew E: Well, it couldn’t have started any better. Bombed a drive in the 1st fairway, and a straight 6 iron got us on in two with a chance at eagle.
Jamieson: Drew and Matt just seemed to make every single putt they needed to, and we failed to take advantage of their miscues. That ended up being prescient right from the first hole.
Jacob: You wouldn’t have known I was nervous on #1. I blasted a drive dead straight just a bit long that rolled into the sand at the hole’s dogleg, but no worries, Jamieson striped an iron into the fairway, and he put us on the green to give us a look at a long two putt birdie I had made the previous day in the practice round. I stepped up to about a 50-footer on the very first hole and hit my best putt of the weekend.
Drew E: Jake rolled his putt, and I had flashbacks to last year’s putting wizardry, but…
Jacob: It stopped right on the edge of the cup—a stiff breeze could’ve blown it in.
Editor’s note: I still think about this putt at least once a week.
Jamieson: While Jake and I felt pretty good about having a tap-in birdie.
Drew E: I stepped up and drained the 40-foot eagle putt.
Jacob: Drew fucking drilled it.
Jamieson: Drew made an absolute bomb for eagle.
Drew E: Which sucked a bit of the life out of team JW.
Jacob: My heart sank.
Jamieson: That set the tone.
Jacob: Drew had just said “are you going to do this to me again?” as my ball rolled towards the hole (referencing Chris and mine’s one-putt-fest against him and Lawton the year before in Cape Cod), and I will go to my grave convinced the soundwaves from these words were what kept my putt out of the hole before circling back and guiding his in.
Jamieson: We tied the next hole with pars, and on the short third hole I nearly drove the green, but we again couldn’t gain a shot back, settling for another par.
Jacob: We were still feeling good about our game, as the difference to that point in a match that featured a ton of great golf shots was one putt. We were fine.
Jamieson: Everything felt fine!
Drew E: After a birdie on #4…
Jacob: Then Matt stuck an approach from somewhere around 180 yards out to within a few feet of the cup. We made par again as they tapped their birdie in, and all of a sudden, we were two down going into #5 through no fault of our own.
Jamieson: Though I nuked a driver on the short par-5 fifth, we still tied with pars.
Drew E: …and clutch par putts on #6 and #7, we suddenly are 4 under and 4 up thru #7.
Jacob: Then on #8 I hit my drive approximately two feet off the tee box, and Jamieson nearly put his OB to the point where we thought we were going to have to go back and take mine. During this stretch where we were deliberating between taking the worst shot of the day and driving up towards his, hoping it was alive, I started to feel like this might be it. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong, and Drew and Matt were playing perfect golf. We were 4 down and lost as to where our next shot might come from. It was dark.
Drew E: But the big lead wouldn’t last long.
Jamieson: Thankfully, we got one back on the tricky 8th, a mid-length par-4 that forces a layup off the tee. We got some good luck on that hole, and it felt like we’d started to take the advantage.
Jacob: Luckily Jamieson’s ball settled on top of some playable small rocks and hard ground just outside of someone’s backyard, so we didn’t have to use my “shot,” and stayed to size up a tough semi-blind attempt out of the trees while we called back to Noodles to pick up my “shot” behind us. After I safely chipped us out into the fairway to give us a high floor on our 3rd shot, Jamieson blasted an incredible shot out over the water and into the fairway on the other side of the creek. Next, my beloved 56-degree finally found its footing, as I put our 3rd shot 15 feet from the hole, pin high. Jamieson drilled the par putt to get us up and down for a really gutsy win. We halved #9, and we went into the back-9 with a little momentum, hoping that shaky stretch was behind us.
Drew E: At the turn, Matt and I decided to just keep playing steady and focus on making pars and avoiding bogeys as we had a 3up lead and our opponents may start pressing.
Jacob: I just want to state for the record that Jamieson probably hit the shot of the tournament on #10—a ~350-yard nuclear bomb that ripped a small hole in the fabric of the universe and settled just short of the left-hand side of the green. Colin was on the 11th tee box razzing him about not driving the green as we drove up to it.
Drew E: Team JWs were not dissuaded by their deficit, and they battled gamely over the next 8 holes.
Jamieson: We got back another on #10 after I stuck a wedge to just a few feet. That one felt pretty good.
Jacob: I also want to state for the record that I hit my best shot of the weekend on #10 (non-56 degree edition) literally in the shadow of Jamieson. My drive went about ~320 on the same side as Jamieson’s did, and I meekly walked back to pick up my weak useless baby shot while Jamieson sized up a birdie opportunity farther up ahead near the oohs and aahs coming from #11. After Jamieson put us in the birdie zone on his approach, I made the first of like three total clutch putts the entire weekend to get us to two down. Game on.
Jamieson: Then a rough bogey on the par-3 11th dropped us back to 3dn. We couldn’t get out of our own way.
Jacob: Then we gave it right back.
Jamieson: And the margin would stay there until the 14th.
Jacob: After #12, Joanna, ever the professional, interviewed us for OWN+ in a by-the-book capital-J journalistic manner, and then once the cameras clicked off, she gave us a little pep talk and told us to pull our shit together.
Jamieson: Joanna told us to kick their asses.
Shane: But the biggest bonus of all was that Drew Essig and Matt Kutz were beating Jamieson and Jake. We made a conscious choice in setting the lineups to go away from what we did in Cape Cod, where we more or less handed Jamieson his first two matches and instead came right out of the gate challenging him. It felt like the better, more aggressive choice, and here it was, working.
Jamieson: Something about #14 fit my eye, because I had hit a bomb off the tee there during the practice round, and did so again during the scramble.
Jacob: Joanna’s pep talk worked. We won two of the next three holes and went into #16 with the entire Channels Cup gallery sitting on top of the hill across the creek looking down on us.
Jamieson: We made a tough birdie putt on the par-3 15th as well to cut the deficit to 1, and we could feel them on the ropes.
Drew E: The last three holes were tight and tense. They cut the lead to only 1 up with 3 to play, making four birdies over that span.
Jamieson: #16 is an awkward downhill-then-uphill par-4, and by my memory, both of us hit awful drives, but we managed to get an approach shot onto the back of the green, where a crowd had assembled.
Jacob: Drew and Matt cleared the creek in the middle of the hole on their tee shots, and after I hit another safe shot that landed short of the creek, Jamieson reared back with his driver and ripped a beautiful line drive layup that settled perfectly in front of the creek and definitely totally 100% was not an attempt to clear it no matter how much anyone else tells you otherwise.
Jamieson: I remember feeling pretty calm despite being in front of everyone.
Jacob: Both teams got on the green in two, and as we drove up that hill it became evident that the four of us were authoring one of the Cup’s first defining moments. It was a deserved moment too, as all four of us were playing great golf, and I relished this opportunity to drain a putt with everyone watching.
Jamieson: But we ran our birdie putt way past the hole.
Jacob: I didn’t miss the cup by much, maybe half an inch or an inch, and after begging it to drop with everyone watching maybe 20 feet behind me, I watched it speed downhill nearly off the green entirely. My moment to try to show off for everyone just made me look like an idiot who doesn’t understand physics (I swear it would have gone in had it hit the cup—those greens were so damn fast!).
Jamieson: And I had to make a tough comebacker to avoid going down dorm.
Jacob: Jamieson followed up my disaster with a putt that good golfers hit, and both teams made par. The raucous hang-out vibe we had encountered when we reached the top of the hill now turned into an intense affair filled with hushed tones. I loved every minute of it. This is what The Channels Cup is all about: turning our silly little competition into the Super Bowl of golf not just for the people playing, but for everyone who wants to be a part of it however they can.
Jamieson: On 17th, a short, dogleg left par-4, we managed to get a wedge into the green.
Jacob: My nerves from the morning had melted away and were now replaced by a double shot of adrenaline. I walked to #17 a man possessed, as the day before in the practice round, I had put my drive on the left side of the greenside bunker on this ~330 yard par 4. The hole was a leftward shape that fit my new driver shot that I have a tendency to crush when I pull it a little left, so I was feeling confident. I forget what Jamieson did—it was probably another good to great drive in a morning filled with them—but I hit my 2nd best driver of the day that we wound up using. It settled in the middle of the fairway, about 80 yards in at a great angle to the narrow front of the green guarded by a bunker on the left and a hill on the right, and better yet, Drew and Matt were not in the best spot (but not in trouble either). As it became apparent that they had to descend into the shadows of the trees to find their drives, the hushed tones around us turned to complete silence.
Jamieson: It really felt at this moment like it might happen for us. It felt like they wanted to give it away.
Lawton (AKA Noodles): After we won, we followed the marquee match of Drew/Matt vs. Jamieson/Jake. We knew we had a team that could give them a match, but were not expecting to actually get the W.
Jacob: I’m not a betting man, but I’d bet that this stretch is where the TV ratings for the entire Cup were at their peak. I remember Rascal and Anthony walking up alongside us as we approached my drive in the fairway, and I made eye contact with them and tried to silently reassure them that we were feeling good. I tried to say something to them in that moment, and I like to think they could tell I wanted to, but it was just too intense. I couldn’t get anything out. The three of us shared a special moment of silence walking down the fairway, then they broke away to the gallery while I headed towards my shot with Jamieson. We had the most important moment of the entire match in front of us and I had my favorite club in my hand. I needed to focus.
And then I pulled it left.
Jamieson: We two-putted, again making par when we badly needed a birdie. It stung! That hole was there for us.
Jacob: Not too far left, but juuuust off the green about pin high (pin high off the green is also known as the Jacob Weindling special). Jamieson hit his approach a little too far, and we had a ~20-foot downhill putt with him on the green. Matt and Drew had a similar long putt after a terrific shot over a tree to put them on the green in two. With the entire Cup behind us watching, we deliberated for what felt like hours as to whether Jamieson’s longer putt on the green was superior to my shorter one just off of it that we could still putt. We eventually chose mine as it still was fairly straight, and after Drew and Kutz missed their putts, Jamieson and I both hit ours a smidge too far above the cup to split yet another hole we had a chance to win with a one-putt, and we went dormie into the dumbest hole in the history of golf.
Jamieson: I don’t think #18 was anyone’s favorite hole.
Jacob: This stupid fucking hole.
Jamieson: It was a weird one to end on.
Jacob: That we’ve got to win to tie.
Jamieson: I think this match actually might have been the only one to even make it that far?
Jacob: You can hit a perfect tee shot.
Jamieson: It’s basically impossible to reach in 2.
Jacob: And it doesn’t fucking matter. It’s no different from flubbing it 4 feet off the tee.
Jamieson: But we figured we had to try.
Jacob: Village Greens says that on #18 “A golfer who hits a tee shot far enough and slightly to the right may have an option to carry the many pine trees that protects the corner of the dogleg if trying to reach the green in two,” and this is the biggest lie ever told in the history of golf. The only landing spot far right enough that gives you room to clear the trees is at the bottom of the fucking pond.
Jamieson: Jake hit a perfect iron into the fairway so that I could give it a go.
Jacob: What Jamieson did on this hole made me 100,000 times angrier at this stupid creation than I was the day before when I met this monstrosity for the first time.
Jamieson: My drive basically needed to go 300 yards with a 50-yard slice around overhanging trees, and it had to avoid a pond, and even then, the best-case scenario would give us a blind shot uphill that we’d need to hook around another tree.
Jacob: I actually take back my assertion on #10. That wasn’t the shot of the tournament, this tee shot on #18 was.
Jamieson: We actually almost pulled it off—my drive didn’t slice far enough, but it got a generous roll, and we were in the fairway. I still can’t believe that 1) that insane shot actually worked, and 2) it still didn’t give us a line at the green. We were still fucked.
Jacob: Jamieson actually hit the shot this hole theoretically demands. The path to getting on in two isn’t to the right—if you cut the trees on the left as close as you possibly can, and then get a bounce on/or avoiding the cart path where the hole doglegs towards the green, there’s a chance it settles past the last batch of trees just to the left of the 150-yard marker. If Jamieson’s missile of a tee shot had rolled another 10 yards, we would have had a semi-clear angle to the green.
Jamieson: But neither of us could pull off the massive hook—we ended up hitting the tree and being lucky that the ball rolled through and into the fairway.
Jacob: If we had hit our 2nd shot on the green and won that hole, I would have formally petitioned Team C&C to give us the win on principle alone. Those two shots combined should have been worth at least two holes. I really like this course and they were terrific hosts, but #18 is offensive enough that I think they should burn the whole course to the ground and start over.
Jamieson: Neither of us could make the birdie putt that would tie the match.
Jacob: Alas, we both couldn’t make yet another 10-to-20-foot putt that would have won us a hole in a morning filled with them.
Jamieson: That was the story of the entire match. Over and over again.
Lawton: The match completely lived up to the hype with big shots on #17 and #18 for Drew/Matt to take the 1up victory.
Jamieson: It was deflating to lose, but we didn’t know at the time the avalanche was overtaking the team.
Jacob: It was still a ton of fun to be a part of, and like the three intense matches I had at Hillandale in 2021, that experience of peak competition with great friends/competitors justified the cost of the trip alone. I joke a lot about my 0-4 to 4-0 records, but the intense feeling of those matches is what sticks with me far more than the outcomes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my 3 comebacks that fell just short to lose on #17 and #18 in 2021 are just as fun of a memory as anything that happened en route to 4-0 in 2022 (save for my cathartic birdie putt to stave off collapse in singles). That feeling of true competition with people you respect—but also want to beat the hell out of—is hard to replicate as an adult who doesn’t play professional sports, and it’s another unique aspect that makes this event so special.
Shane: We were all watching on the hill when that match ended, and to be honest, it was a pretty big shock to be up 4-0. The day before, Colin, who was crunching numbers like a madman for months leading up to the Cup, told us that he thought scramble was our weakest lineup, and that even if we lost 3-1, we'd be in solid shape for the rest of the weekend.
Drew E: Matt and I definitely ham and egged it well the whole match and ended up shooting 69 (nice) for 3 under par. I don’t believe we both hit bad shots at any single stroke (Editor’s note: Correct). Our putting was great early and late, and we withstood their charge on the back 9. It was a long and grueling battle to say the least, and I’m proud of Matt and me for keeping our cool and sticking to the plan. We parred every hole on the back 9.
Lawton & Drew H (won 4&3) vs. Chris & Damon
Chris: I was excited, nervous.
Lawton: It's early. We're ready to go. As a captain's group, we thought this was our worst format. Team World had some great pairings out there and we just wanted to survive. I was paired with Drew and knew we'd play well together. There's just a family vibe that's great for scramble.
Shane: I had played the practice round with Lawton and Drew H., and I knew they both were capable of incredible shots. Both could also be wild, but I felt the scramble was perfect for them and Chris and Damon would have some trouble.
Chris: With the benefit of hindsight, I now realize that I was wholly unprepared for their combination of years of friendship and local knowledge of the course.
Shane: That was proved right on the first nine, when they got all the way to 5-up, giving Team World basically no hope.
Lawton: We should have won hole #1, but I was awful around the green. Got an easy halve on #2. Then we get to the run of Drew's life on the putting green.
Chris: Things started fine enough, but then on #3 the whole match turned. Drew hit an absolute bomb of a putt which I think halved the hole? (A running theme here is that I will not be looking up any of the details except for which holes things happened on. It's enough that I am submitting any of this for the historical record.)
Lawton: He makes a 20-footer on #3 for the half.
Chris: Anyway, I thought we were on our way to an early lead or at least a nice start, but no, it wasn't to be.
Lawton: Drew then makes a 15-footer on #4 to win that hole and then another long putt on #5 to win that one. All of a sudden, we're 3 up and we're fired up. We then scratch out another win on #6. We're 4 up. Chris and Damon are talking to themselves.
Chris: Drew bombed a few more, Lawton played solidly as always, and we just didn't have enough.
Lawton: We had heard so much about Damon's offseason work and boy did we not see any of it. Could have been his first time on the course and you would have been proud of him for getting out there. They staunch the bleeding on #8 with a halve but then lose the long par 3 9th.
Chris: The highlight of this round, however, is on #13, the sharp dogleg par 5. I hit my drive, trying to cut the corner, and thought it would be fine, but it was lost in the trees. I took the local rule, 2 stroke penalty, and dropped in the fairway to hit our 4th shot. I hit one of the best iron shots of my life, and nailed the putt for an eagle-except-it-was-par.
Lawton: The back 9 was more of a formality with Chris and Damon finding a couple of wins before I sunk a curling 12-footer to win hole #15 and close out a 4 and 3 victory.
Chris: The lowlight of this round is on #16 (Editor’s note: It was #15), where we ended up losing the match. With everyone watching, our ball was just short of the green, at the top of the big hill leading up to the green. I flubbed a chip, and the ball traveled about 50 yards backwards, down the hill, where it came to rest next to the group waiting behind us. Fortunately, Damon got us on the green, but we couldn't do enough to extend the match, and that was that.
Lawton: At that point, we realize we have a shot at a 4-0 start to the tournament with much better formats coming up for us. Rachael and Deb showed up with some subs and we got the team together to say, "let's step on their throat". We had a chance to really make Day 2 a formality. You could see fractures in their team already. Too many big personalities just not meshing into a performing unit. We had to take advantage of their weakness.
Shane: The fact that we had swept it was astounding, and even though I shouldn't have been thinking this way, I started to get the first inkling that maybe this was going to be very, very lopsided. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't have predicted what would happen, but there was almost a sense of apprehension among some of us that this thing could be basically over by the afternoon. This was supposed to be our weak session. I think we would have been overjoyed at 3-1, but 4-0 had that odd effect of being a little too good, to the point where there was a little shadow over our joy. And it turned out we were right to be concerned.
Session 2: Alternate-Shot
Dan: I remained in bed.
Ivan: Thank you to Joanna and Rachael for letting me be an honorary OWN+ correspondent. I think everyone thought I was drunker than I really was. It's just that I had helped myself to some random person's already used cart which was filled with empty beer cans. I was laser-focused on parking directly in Jamieson's line of sight whenever possible.
Shane & Matt (won 6&5) vs. Gary & Anthony
Anthony: Possibly a bad decision: doing a shot of Weller Antique 107 with Rascal and Damon shortly before teeing off.
Gary: This match was a blur and neither Anthony nor I played well.
Shane: It will probably sound arrogant, but I knew beyond a doubt that Matt Kutz and I were going to win our foursomes match.
Anthony: I thought after our practice round that I should take the even tees, and this turned out to be a bad calculation.
Gary: My troubles off the tee persisted and we could never get any rhythm in the match.
Anthony: Gary hadn't driven well that morning, unbeknownst to me, and decided his driver would stay in the bag. I'd like to say we might've had a chance had we let him tee off on the even holes, but I played so badly it probably wouldn't have made a difference.
Shane: We had done a lot of lineup jockeying before the Cup, with various scenarios and plan Bs and plan Cs, but I fought hard to keep Matt and I together in alt shot for the simple reason that we both love the format, and I love playing with Matt. I'm not sure he'd say the same about me, but Matt basically has the perfect golf personality for me, whether it's playing 18 for fun at Hillandale, or in the heat of The Channels Cup. He's funny, he's laid back, but he's also competitive and steps up in the big moments. It's a total pleasure playing with him, and while a lot of people don't like the alternate shot format, we embrace it. Our running joke in weekend rounds at Hillandale is that he always wants to play alt shot, and nobody else will waste their round not playing their ball for an entire hole (including me). This is our one chance at it, and we were ready.
Anthony: The worst part was that I saved my most useless shots for right after Gary hit a good shot.
Shane: In fact, my big memory from this match is Rachael interviewing us on the 10th tee, and saying something like, "a lot of people aren't fans of alt shot," and etc., and we just responded, "we love it." That's why we won so easily at Hillandale, and it's why I knew we'd win in Spartanburg too, even though we had a tough team in Gary and Anthony.
Gary: Somehow on the way to the 5th tee box, due to my poor driving, I got our cart stuck in an awkward position between the cart path with one side of the cart on the path side and the other on the grass straddling a wooden railroad tie. It took all four of us to push the car over the tie and back on the path. Continuing the theme of bad driving, I proceed to hit my tee shot out of bounds on #5 for the THIRD consecutive round. Needless to say, that did not help us, and despite Shane hitting their second shot across the road and out of bounds, they still managed to get a 6. We did not and were down 3.
Anthony: I do remember I flushed my tee shot on the short par 3, #6, but forgot I was playing with a Piper Blue and had too much club, it turns out. Didn't draw and took one bounce straight out of bounds.
Shane: There wasn't much they could do; we were 5-up after seven holes.
Gary: On #8 we finally got off the schneid.
Anthony: I also crushed my drive on #8, but that's a hole where you can't do that, and presumably I ended up in the creek. Luckily Gary saved my ass with a great third shot.
Gary: Shane, hitting from the left rough, puts their second shot in the pond. We manage to get a 5 to WIN a hole. We're only down 4 and right back in it.
Shane: And though we went back and forth trading blows for a few holes, wins at #12 and #13 meant we once again had the most lopsided result of the whole Channels Cup.
Gary: (we're not anywhere near being in it)
Anthony: The only good part was getting to pound Coors Lights while doing the ol' "everyone gets to watch this match now" with Jamieson and Chris vs Colin and Galen, but we know how that turned out.
Gary: They played well and deserved to win. We played like ass and deserved to lose. We watched some of our teammates hoping to root them to victory, but we failed at that too. Rough day.
Shane: I'm not sure anyone could beat us in this format; give us Colin and Jamieson, and we'd still roll.
Lawton & Jim (won 4&3) vs. Jacob & Zac
Lawton: Alternate Shot was great. I knew I had a great partner in Jim. He's so steady and just never in a bad mood. No matter what was going to happen, I knew we were going to have a good time.
Jacob: After the raw intensity of the morning and the crushing feeling the end of the match brought (plus the annoyance of having to take an accounting quiz for grad school immediately afterwards), it was nice to have a fun laid back round with Jim, Lawton and Rascal.
Lawton: We were taking on Jake and Zac which is a formidable pair. We just had to put the pressure on.
Jacob: It was also nice that they let us have the only lead I would enjoy the entire weekend after halving #1 and giving us #2.
Lawton: It didn't start how we wanted. We had a chance to win the 1st hole but as like the morning match, I just couldn't make a putt.
Jim: We tied #1 after Lawton and I both hit poor chips. Lost #2 when I pushed my tee shot into the trees and we couldn’t find it.
Zac: The round started off well—Jake chipped in from greenside on #2 to get us the hole, but Lawton and Jim ham and egged it amazingly well on #3 to get it back to all square.
Lawton: Definitely not the ideal start when you're trying to do some throat stomping.
Jim: Won #3 when both Jake’s and Noodles’s tee shots bounced right, but Jake’s bounced further right—we were all surprised it wasn’t in the pond at the bottom of the hill.
Jacob: Rascal did well with the horrendous shot on the side of a mountain I left him, but we couldn’t make the long two-putt he saved for us.
Lawton: Thankfully, just like the morning, we dominated #3 - #5 to take a 2-up lead.
Jacob: One might think this was an intense affair given that both teams wouldn’t halve a hole in the match again until #11.
Lawton: This included the best shot of my day, with a 35-45 yard bunker shot that landed soft and stopped around 5 feet from the hole for Jim to tap in. At this point, I was thinking you'd see things fall apart on their end. To their credit, they bounced right back taking #6 and #7 to get back to all square.
Jim: Fast forward to #6: we’re now 2 up and Zac’s tee shot was near the OB line/fence; we let them take relief. I don’t know if they were actually allowed relief, but they ended up with a better angle for their chip and won the hole. They also won #7 but that was the last time we were all square.
Lawton: You now had a long par 4 where you risk going into water if you go too far, followed by a very long par 3 playing from the back tees. To say that Zac and Jake are longer hitters than Jim and I is an understatement. This is Andre the Giant fighting Mini Me. To then say I was shocked when Jim and I dominated these two holes to take a 2 up lead to the back would also be an understatement.
Zac: We went into the turn down two, but won #10 to cut it to 1 up after 10.
Lawton: To put this in the larger context, at this point we're looking at the scores around us and see Shane/Matt absolutely dominating. Then behind us, Drew/Heath are on fire and Colin/Galen are holding a slim lead. I'm sitting there thinking "no fucking way we're leading 8-0". It's just not a statistical possibility. I try to wipe this from my mind to make sure Jim and I do our part. The back nine starts with a Team World win on #10 to make my butthole tighten up like an airlock on the International Space Station.
Zac: On the par 3 #11, we had an unlucky break where Jake's ball hit an overhanging branch off the tee, but still landed on the green, just like 80 feet away. Jim stuck it to like 3 feet. I hit an incredible lag that got us to within 3-5 feet, just an all timer of a putt. Jake sunk it and the pressure was on, and I believe Lawton missed a very easy putt to win the hole, and we halved.
Lawton: Halve on #11, but then we get the 2up lead back on #12.
Zac: The momentum seemed like it was going our way, but they won #12 and #13.
Jim: We were two up playing #13 … either pairing could still win ... when the match turned.
Jacob: By watching us you wouldn’t have known it was an intense yo-yo contest with wild momentum swings. We were all just having a really nice time playing golf with our friends.
Lawton: This was fun.
Jacob: Until #13.
Lawton: Then we reached the 13th hole, which was just an absolute shitshow.
Jacob: Which is now my personal Waterloo.
Lawton: I tee off and go out of bounds to the right.
Jacob: It found itself in an aggravating spot on the course.
Zac: Further to our benefit, Lawton and Jim’s ball landed about 10 feet out of bounds, but it was in a mowed area that looked clearly in play. But it was on the other side of the stakes, and they had to drop and take penalty strokes (after a semi-heated debate).
Jacob: They had shaved an overgrown area and made it a playable bailout zone for drives to the right that wasn’t unreasonably far off the fairway, but Rascal pointed out that the white stakes on either side of it lined up to put basically the entire shaved section out of bounds, and their ball was clearly out.
Jim: Then Jake’s tee shot was wet.
Jacob: A week out from the Cup, it still physically pains me to think about what I did on this hole.
Editor’s Note: Three-plus months out from the Cup, it still physically pains me to think about what I did on this hole.
Jacob: I was teeing off on odd holes and part of that reason was this hole.
Editor’s note: In hindsight, I think this was a mistake (duh). This hole is a key one given its ability to wreak heaven or havoc on your score, and it’s not like Rascal is a short hitter, and he has a natural fade that fits this hole perfectly. This was a decision I felt strongly about at the time, and it pretty much cost us the match, as you’ll see now.
Jacob: I hit a great 260-270 yard drive in the practice round (my average drive) to the perfect spot on the far-left side of the fairway to make it easy to get there in two, and figured that I could replicate it or something like it again with how much room to bail out there was both to the left and right.
I proceeded to hit a line drive straight down into the fucking pond.
Lawton: Then Jim tees off and goes out bounds.
Jim: (I dumped our provisional in the water).
Lawton: Then Zac and myself finally get balls in play.
Jacob: It wasn’t in great shape, I had to semi-chip it out with an 8 iron out of the semi-shit on the right, but it was very alive and very playable, unlike every single shot that came before it. I got it up well within a shot of the green and we were feeling good.
Jim: Lawton hit our 5th shot to the middle of the fairway.
Lawton: We're sitting 5 in the fairway but further away and they're sitting 3 in the fairway.
Jacob: ESPN’s shitty probability machine definitely had us as 99+% favorites to win the hole at this point.
Lawton: From here to the green was the definition of a misadventure.
Jim: We hit two really good shots.
Jacob: Then Rascal duffed his chip.
Jim: And had about 5 feet for an 8.
Jacob: No problem I thought, it still rolled out to a dream distance—80 yards—and all I need to do is get this on the green and have Zac and I two-putt to take this back to one down going into #14. Opportunities like these are the shots of my dreams, as I had proved in the morning round by hanging with Jamieson from 100 and in time and time again. Just get it on and we win the hole with how we were putting. Easy-peezy.
Jim: They hacked their way up the fairway reaching the green also in 7.
Jacob: I’ve typed and deleted like five things already and I can tell I will keep doing that so just be rest assured that this moment is the spiritual price I paid for the 4-0 in Cape Cod. I duffed it 10 inches ahead of me and sank to my knees knowing I had just nearly clinched a titanic choke job that I had kick-started off the tee.
Jim: They two-putted for a 9 and I made our putt to win the hole.
Zac: They won, despite their first two shots being dead. Jake and I never recovered.
Jacob: We lost the match two holes later, but everyone knew it happened right there.
Lawton: There was an eerie silence as we headed to #14.
Jacob: All the energy and good vibes that Zac and I had maintained throughout the round just melted out of the cart, and it was hard to stay focused on a match we theoretically were still competitive in when we were just two simmering balls of sadness and rage.
Lawton: Shane and Matt had already clinched up ahead, so they were next to the 14th fairway.
Jim: We halved #14 so we are 3 up playing #15.
Lawton: We go to the short, but bunker protected 15th. I'm teeing off knowing I just need to put something in play.
Jim: On #15 Lawton puts our tee shot in the front bunker and Jake hits their tee shot into the water hazard.
Editor’s note: 🙃
Lawton: I leave it in a terrible place in the front bunker which is around 10 feet below the green.
Jim: Zac took relief—could he have gone back to the tee and teed it up? I don’t know but I didn’t think so (if this is wrong maybe it cancels out the relief they got on #6). Zac hits it to just off the back of the green.
Lawton: Rascal hits a decent shot, and they look in position to at least halve the hole and force it to #16. Step in today's Superhero, Jim Klachan.
Jim: As it turns out it doesn’t really matter.
Jacob: Oh yeah, I forgot, the final dagger through our hearts.
Lawton: You can't even see him down in that bunker, but this year, they forgot to break his glasses.
Zac: Then Jim finished us off on 15th with a chip in birdie from the sand.
Jacob: I’ll be honest, I didn’t see it. I was staring off into the distance, mentally licking my wounds. I only heard the whole thing unfold to its roaring crescendo before turning around and seeing that dastardly Jim standing 100 feet below me in that giant bunker, holding my beating heart in his hands.
Jim: Because I holed out from the bunker to end our match 4 and 3.
Gary: I was fortunate enough to witness, from behind the water, Jim holing out his bunker shot on #15. One of the most memorable shots in Channels Cup history up there with Anthony's second shot on #17 at Bass River and Rascal hitting it out of the bush on #12 at Bass River, neither of which I saw.
Lawton: He hits a luscious shot that lands on the green and is tracking to the hole. I can't imagine this is going to fall in, but it keeps trickling and falls into the hole to end it.
Zac: C&C chipping in from the sand as we're standing over a putt to at least tie pretty much sums up the entire tournament.
Shane: The resounding memory of this round, for me, will always be Jim making the bunker shot to win the match on #15. Matt and I were actually on #14 when it happened, and we saw the whole thing play out across the water. I think that was the moment I knew that we were going to win.
Jim: To me this is one thing that makes golf great—anyone can hit a shot that no pro could improve on. When considering the fact that about a dozen other Slack people were watching and it closed out our match, I rank it as the best golf shot I’ve ever made (only possibly outdone by my hole-in-one). As I tell it now that bunker has about a 10-foot face I have to hit it over.
Shane: Somehow, Team World had to pull off a miracle in Match 2, but instead it was Jim sticking the dagger into their backs. That fundamentally made it 7-0, and, well, you do the math.
Lawton: We get our handshakes from Zac and Jake which to their credit, were cordial. Then they were gone, off to drink, hit golf balls, cry, or whatever else Channels Cup losses bring.
Jacob: Zac drove us back to the clubhouse as I pounded multiple natty lights on the way trying to forget what just happened while simultaneously trying to process it. When we got back, I sat in the cart just zonked out as I got progressively drunker and drunker while Rascal angrily hit a full bucket of balls on the driving range behind me. I was in complete and utter shock as to how badly I blew that match.
Zac: After the round I got a large(read:150) bucket of balls, and hit 150 driver shots.
Jacob: It felt weird, the two of us just venting our rage in solitary silence, like a scene out of (insert irreverent comedy here), but it also felt right.
Zac: After my driver saving me in the 2022 Channels Cup, it betrayed me in 2023. I think it took me 45 minutes.
Jacob: We had both just under-performed our own expectations for ourselves and were trying to find some semblance of control over a world where we had totally lost it, clinging on to the last vestiges of hope we could scrounge up as the sun began to set on us.
Drew E & Heath (won 6&4) vs. Bobby & Damon
Heath: Drew and I make a really good team (or at least, he's a really good teammate for me). He has this way of not putting pressure on me while also putting juuusst enough pressure on me to make me feel calm, but to not want to let him down.
Drew E: This match was quite different than my morning scramble match.
Bobby: We...did not play well.
Drew E: None of the participants played particularly well.
Editor’s note: I’ve never been more mad editing this thing than I was reading this last line. Drew was a golf god in the morning.
Heath: Just a couple of pals having a nice relaxing afternoon stroll but also, if I could leave him a clear look at the green from within 150, that'd be great.
Drew E: There were definitely holes won with double bogey (and maybe worse). Winning holes while taking penalty strokes. And holes with over 6 total putts between the two groups.
Heath: This round had echoes of the first Cup when I also played alternate shot against Bobby and Damon (with Aaron as my partner); in both rounds Bobby started off really stressed.
Bobby: By "we," I mean both teams. All of us were hitting shots from some less than desirable places. Balls went in the woods. Balls went in the water.
Heath: In 2021, he was irritated because Damon was 10 minutes late; this time he had some last second family stressors (which fortunately turned out fine). Obviously, family stress is more worrisome that being irritated that your partner has been murdered in a strip club bathroom (Damon to this day denies that he was late because he had been murdered in a strip club bathroom).
Bobby: Two highlights: my tee shot on the par 3 11th.
Heath: Two years ago, Bobby absolutely kicked our asses, but this year his round was a little off. Honestly, we all played some really shitty golf for the first 3-4 holes...Drew and I got it sorted around hole #4 or #5, I think.
Drew E: By far the most memorable shot was Bobby’s tee shot on #11.
Heath: Bobby hit a spectacular tee shot on the par-3 11th.
Bobby: I lost my ball as soon as I hit it, but felt I had hit it well. I said, "where did it go?" Someone said, "right at the pin!" and a second later…
Heath: He literally hit the flag.
Bobby: We all heard it smack the flag. It ended up about 10 feet past the hole. Did we make the birdie?
Drew E: Even then, they managed to 3-putt for bogey.
Bobby: Still won the hole, though.
Heath: Drew and I took #12 and had opened up a healthy lead. Then two holes later, Damon tried to kill a guy.
Bobby: The other highlight was Damon's shot that hit multi-sport Matt in the head.
Drew E: The second most memorable shot was Damon hooking it into the gallery on #14 and hitting Matt. With the ball finally resting directly behind a tree.
Heath: #13 and #14 run parallel to each other, and there was a bit of a logjam by then for some reason. So the group ahead was standing in the woods between the green on #13 (on the left) and the tee on #14 as Bobby and I hit our approaches from similar spots. We looked at each other and said, effectively "they're safe there, right? That's not where I've been missing all day." So we both agreed and then Bobby immediately duck-hooked his approach right into them. Fortunately, all were safe, we had a rueful chuckle and then I said, "surely I can't miss that badly," as it would have required me to slice it a good 35 yards off where I was aiming for on the green. So of course, I did that right away and again, was fortunate not to hit anyone. We finished out the hole and hit decent drives on #14.
Bobby: Thankfully, Matt was OK, and in true team fashion, he used his head to redirect the ball into a completely unplayable lie for me.
Heath: Again, they were backed up on the 15th tee but even farther away from anywhere near the green. At which point Damon said, "hold my bong" and hooked his shot directly into the trees/cart path 30 yards left of the green. I had a perfect view and thought the ball caromed off the roof of one of the carts (where it would come to nestle PERFECTLY in the roots of tree completely blocking any shot at the green). We get down there and Multi-sport Matt is rubbing his head, and we all had a collective "oh shit!" moment.
Heath: Fortunately, it had taken one hop before it got there and he was fine, but I'm really glad he was with our group! Anyway, a fun round from Drew and my perspective. I think we closed the match out on that hole. (And also Matt did not die.)
Drew E: That summed up the afternoon as we won the hole to win the match 6 and 4.
Colin & Galen (won 2&1) vs. Jamieson & Chris
Jamieson: I was pretty happy to play alt shot with captain Wurst, but going in we knew it was going to be a tough match—Colin and Galen are maybe Team CnC’s best two players, but Colin had played poorly in his first match, and Galen’s game wasn’t on either.
Galen: My swing did not make the trip.
Shane: Ahead, it was clear that Drew and Heath were going to win in a rout, and in the only tight match of the session, Colin and Galen had the edge over Jamieson and Chris.
Galen: My first tee shot, I topped it left into the woods. After that it was 50/50 on every swing. The pressure on the tee was a PROBLEM.
Jamieson: Team World jumped out to a quick lead, winning the first two holes with bogeys, but we put our approach shot on #3 into the weeds, and they made a birdie on #4 to draw the match even. That would be the last time we ended up with the lead.
Shane: In the last match of the day, Galen wasn't quite himself after being sick earlier in the week, but he did enough in support of Colin to win that match too, and the unthinkable outcome was real: 8-0.
Galen: Fortunately, Colin was non-stop optimism. I realized the greens at Village putt just like a course back home.
Chris: Galen put on an absolute fucking putting clinic.
Galen: I started draining big putts, which kept us ahead most of the match.
Jamieson: My memory of most of the rest of the match was that it felt like neither Team CnC player was actually playing that well, and we felt like we were actually playing well, but we just couldn’t scrape a lead out. We three-putted the fifth hole to lose that one, tied the 7th with birdies after I drove the green, and then made an incredible scrambling par on eight to square the match. But we lost the ninth, and the 10th, and though we won the 11th, we just couldn’t get over the hump. It was just one of those kinds of days.
Chris: Jamieson and I didn't play our best. I particularly remember me having a horrible bunker shot on #12, putting us out of position on a hole we should have dominated. But we didn't play poorly, I just don't think there's anything we actually could have done. Galen was pouring in the putts. He was giving Colin perfect reads when it wasn't his turn to putt.
Jamieson: They ham-and-fucking-egged it.
Chris: I'm convinced Galen lied about his entire teaching career and instead was living at Village Greens for months. There's no other way he'd have known those greens so well.
Jamieson: #12 was emblematic of the round—a tie with doubles after they lost their tee shot and we scraped it around. In retrospect, I think we had the correct players teeing off on the correct holes for the front nine, but on the back nine we didn’t strike the right balance, and maybe the better strategy would have been to flip them. It’s tough to ever know for sure, though, which is what makes alt shot so interesting. A par on the par-3 15th brought us back to 1dn, and it felt again like we had the momentum with us to complete the comeback, but we just couldn’t get in the hole on the 16th or 17th, and ended up losing 2dn.
Galen: Colin, bless him, hit the worst tee shot ever on the 16th hole and I had to play from the bushes. Every other group had finished, so there about 12 carts and what felt like 60 people. Obviously, I could not get it on the green from the middle of a bush, but God what I wouldn't give to have pulled that shot off.
Shane: We had also accomplished another goal, which was to deal Jamieson two losses on the first day; we had learned our lesson from Cape Cod, and had managed not to give their best player a head of steam heading into Saturday. At that point, if it wasn't already abundantly clear, the Channels Cup was over. We needed 2.5 points out of 12 matches on Saturday, and we considered fourball, which we'd play in the morning, our strongest set of match-ups. If anything, it would have mildly surprised me if we didn't have our 10.5 points before anyone hit a singles shot in the afternoon. Considering all that, there was a feeling on our side that I wouldn't call "somber," but was at least reserved, with maybe a touch of something like melancholy. It would have been more fun to be up 6-2. It may sound condescending, but the fact is, nobody on either side wanted an 8-0 score.
Lawton: Almost simultaneously to Jim’s bunker shot, Drew and Heath were closing out a dominant 6 &5 victory. We had an 8-0 lead in the 2024 Channels Cup. It was weird though because we're actually lovely people and didn't want to over-celebrate. We still had points to go get tomorrow.
Shane: Well, almost nobody. One of the funniest moments in the afternoon came when a group of us from C&C were hanging around, being reserved, considering what the implications for the Cup itself might be of such a runaway. Then Drew came up, fresh off his win, and was beaming. "8-0!" he said. "We're kicking the shit out of them, this is awesome!" That lifted our spirits, and we stopped thinking too hard about the future and just enjoyed what we had done. And once we got back to the house, we were able to loosen up and laugh about how Team World were a collection of absolute betas.
Friday Night Hang
Jamieson: I’ll be honest, I can’t really keep Friday and Thursday straight.
Jim: I remember The Kiss.
Lawton: Friday night was very muted compared to prior years.
Jacob: Oh my God I drank so much.
Ivan: Jake was doing homework, and the veggie pizza was good.
Chris: I remember nothing really, what a shitty mood.
Jacob: Not like, fun drank so much though (though I had fun). This was like a Zoomass thing, but morose.
Zac: Thursday night was amazing. Friday night sucked.
Bobby: I crashed extremely early because I was absolutely exhausted.
Drew E: Team World's mood was expectedly a bit morose given the 8-0 score at day's end.
Zac: I think I sulked a lot and whined a lot. I'm not sure if we threw darts.
Jamieson: I remember there was a hot tub that got some use. There was a good amount of drinking. The primary bedroom had an insane shower that Rasc thankfully fixed for us.
Zac: I got into the hot tub and convinced Joanna and Jamieson to join me, and I've been asked not to say any more.
Jamieson: I’ve already probably said more about the hot tub than I was supposed to.
Lawton: I'm not sure if we're getting older and wiser or if the 8-0 lead had a bit to do with it. Joanna and Rachael had worked to create amazing gift bags for everyone, and the pizza from the local best Venus Pie was delicious.
Zac: I remember the pizza being dank, though.
Heath: I got to see Zach! Didn't get to chat enough though.
Anthony: Got to meet Zach D! Too bad my power nap went 2 hours.
Jacob: The hang was fun. I got to meet Zach in person for the first time and I got to hang with Drew H and the whole MLS sickos crew for the first time too. Colin and I talked about all the sports. It was great.
Galen: Shout out the pizza. Also thank you to the ladies for the swag.
Lawton: I did get a lovely kiss from Jim that he said was from my wife. Looking back, I think it's possible Rachael had nothing to do with it.
Jacob: Because sports are nothing but poetic, after Colin, mine, and I forget who else’s chatter about the big four leagues subsided (remember, I’m still seething with pain at this point and about 100 beers deep), I vaguely remember the talk returning back to MLS again. And wouldn’t you know it, right as the lads were talkin it up about a third(?) tier soccer league, those scoundrels the Colorado Rockies were at it again. Zach alerted us to the fact that these brilliant young men, historic innovators of drudgery, were authoring one of their most brilliant scripts yet.
They were throwing a no-hitter. In the 8th inning. At Coors Field. And were losing. The most on-brand thing they could possibly ever do for their first-ever home no-no (Ubaldo’s was in Atlanta). Alas, like so many Team World dreams that day, fate had other plans for them, and they blew both the no-no and the loss and swept our hopes and dreams away right at the moment my mind goes blank that night.
Ivan: I looked for leftover pickled veggies in the fridge but didn't see any. Maybe the lowest point of the weekend for me.
Jamieson’s Editor’s note: There were so many pickled veggies leftover, I have no idea what he’s talking about.
Editor’s note: Jamieson got an advanced copy of the oral history and thank goodness he did, lest we let Ivan get away with outright lies like this.
Session 3: Fourball
Jacob: And then I had to get up and go play golf.
Lawton: As captain, I took this session off. Originally, we figured it would be a critical session to determine whether we'd be set up to win in Singles or chasing our tails. We did not know that we could end it right here. I did not get my own cart, so I got to ride with Rachael and Joanna and see the hard work that goes into the on-course interviews. When I say they bust their ass, I mean it. Driving around a golf course for 8 hours while not hitting a single golf ball and still having fun and making it so much better for all of us. Truly amazing stuff to see up close.
Lawton: As for the golf, this was probably the most competitive session. Ivan and Jim were a couple shots away from taking a lead before ultimately yielding to their stronger rivals. Shane/Drew v Chris/Zac would be up there for match of the weekend—it was never more than 1up until C&C won #15 and #17 to win 2 and 1. Matt/Galen had a very workmanlike 3up victory over Anthony/Jake. They never trailed and that left the Colin/Heath vs Gary/Bobby matchup to see if Singles would even matter.
Dan: Again, bed.
Ivan & Jim vs. Jamieson & Damon (won 6&5)
Jamieson: This match ended up being over pretty quick, which was a relief, since Team World desperately needed a W.
Jim: The second year in a row I’ve been matched against Jamieson in fourball, and I can tell I don’t have the confident mindset that I have in matches where I believe I have a chance to win. That’s on me to be a more confident player. Ivan and I could have made things harder on Team World—they were winning holes with bogeys.
Ivan: Nothing of consequence happened during our match against Jamieson and Damon. I'm not sure why everyone else is lying.
Shane: In that session, Jamieson and Damon had secured the first point against Ivan and Jim—Ivan was pissed off.
Jamieson: I think we had been shut out until Damon and I put these points on the board.
Ivan: If I had to guess, I'd say the vibes were ... great?
Jim: If we’d made some pars on the front side maybe we could have pushed them a little harder. We had a rule controversy early on where there was a difference of opinion on where a ball crosses a hazard, but did it make any difference; I doubt it. I won the 10th hole with a stress-free par; that was really my only highlight of the round.
Jamieson: We lost a hole and tied a few more but ended up winning on #13. It was a... weird ending.
Jim: The match ended on #13 with another controversy; we had conceded Damon’s putt after a really good chip; I don’t know if it was for 5 or 6. I was on the green putting for a 4, Ivan was on the fringe in two, so he also had a decent chance at par and Jamieson was over the back with a downhill lie. Jamieson was up first, bladed his chip and it looked like it might end up in the pond, but it hit Damon’s ball and he had 18 inches left for par. Someone should have moved/marked Damon’s ball. Damon didn’t hear the concession and regardless at the very least it should have been marked before Jamieson’s chip. We probably should have won that hole and forced them to play at least one more.
Shane & Drew E (won 2&1) vs. Chris & Zac
Chris: We needed a miracle.
Zac: Vibes were slightly better despite the 8-0 sweep from the day before.
Drew E: This match for me was highly anticipated. I lost to Zac in singles and Chris in fourball last TCC, so there was some revenge on the mind.
Zac: Chris and I decided to do our warmup routine for Shane and Drew only, but like the jerks they are they were too busy playing grab ass with themselves in the cart to see it.
Shane: Saturday morning I'm convinced there comes a time in every Channels Cup when you're just not going to play well, and for me that has always been Saturday morning.
Chris: And we weren't going to get one.
Shane: At Hillandale in 2021, I lost with Galen to Dan and Chris in a very frustrating match, and in Cape Cod, it was Chris and Anthony playing a beautiful scramble to get a half point against Colin and I in a match that felt like a loss. The format was different this time, with Fourball, but the opponent was the same: Chris Wurst, yet again, for the third straight Saturday, paired with Zac. And yet again, I played like shit. Lucky for me, I had Drew Essig on my side.
Drew E: Shane and I had been practicing playing together in fourball for the last month or so, to not so great results. But we knew that was more about execution then chemistry, and we expected to play better together.
Chris: Again, the start was OK.
Zac: This was a great match, back and forth the whole way.
Drew E: We certainly started off strong with a birdie on #1, and both of us making birdies on #5.
Zac: No one got more than one up, until C&C won it on the 17th going 2 up.
Chris: I got a lucky break on #2 where my bladed approach shot scampered through the bunker and rolled up onto the green. Zac and I tried our best with a porta potty bit for the OWN+ cameras greenside on #3, but I don't really remember much else of this round.
Shane: The best way I can describe this match is that while Chris and Zac were ham-and-egging beautifully, I don't think I counted on a single hole...and yet we were right with them every step of the way. That shows you how well Drew was playing to keep us afloat, and believe me, we needed him...left to my own devices, I would have lost that match in ten holes.
Drew E: Shane holed a chip from well off the green to secure #5. All that did was square the match back up. I was personally even par thru 5 holes, and we were all square in the match. That was a sign of things to come.
Shane: As it was, neither team ever got more than 1-up until the very end, and when Team World squared it on the 10th hole, it stayed all square right through #14.
Drew E: I made a big up and down to par #15 and give us a 1 up lead.
Chris: On the back 9, there was a hole where Shane was very adorably super concerned about whether or not his ball would move when he moved an enormous tree branch out of the way to get a shot.
Shane: After Drew won the 15th hole, something funny happened in my head. I had been a little down throughout the match because of how poorly I was playing, and maybe a little whiny, but something shifted as we went to the 16th tee, and I realized that I was in the funny situation where I could do pretty much nothing all day, but come up huge at the end.
Chris: Oh, I also remember trying to hit an approach shot past the trees, somewhere on the back 9, but instead slammed it directly into the tree where it bounced behind me. My second backwards shot of the weekend. What a fucking microcosm.
Zac: I remember it was a really good time, and that both teams were very well paired. Like, we should run this back every year; it was the round of the tournament for sure.
Shane: There's something great about that element in match play, and even a little bit funny. I was enjoying the situation for the first time all morning, and on the par-4, I hit a beautiful drive down the hill, chipped onto the green, and with Drew out of the hole, made a two-putt par. That could have closed the match, but Chris made an excellent par of his own to halve it. Even so, I had finally counted on a hole, and contributed in a big moment.
Drew E: It ended on #17 when both our opponents found the hazard off the tee. Zac played a heroic shot to avoid a penalty stroke, but they could only muster double bogey for the hole.
Shane: At this point, it has to be said that Team World was very pissed off, and vibes were at their lowest of the whole weekend.
Drew E: The 11-inch putt to secure the match was sweet.
Shane: On the last hole of our match, we had a strange situation where Chris and Rascal wanted me to putt when Drew's putt to win the match was about two inches from the hole. When Drew's putt rolled up close, I had taken my hat off to shake hands, which I think annoyed them, but when they wanted me to putt, I just picked up my ball, both because I wanted to give it right back to them, and because Drew deserved to close the match out for how well he had played. Everyone was gathering by the 17th green, and there was a definite split between the teams.
Zac: Also Shane accused me of cheating like 4 times, luckily level-headed Drew was there to call him on his BS. What is it with that guy?! METHINKS THE LADY DOTH PROJECT TOO MUCH (I'm kidding this is all a bit).
Drew E: In the end, it came down to a few missed putts by them vs. made putts by us. A very tight, even match which was a lot of fun too. There was also a fallen tree/branch involving Shane’s ball, but I’m sure he has 500 words on that, so I’ll leave it up to him to explain.
Editor’s note: No there isn’t! Shane failed to elaborate on The Branch Incident. Scandal!
Colin & Heath vs. Gary & Bobby (tied)
Jim: The Cup score was 10-2 with only one match left; Colin and Heath vs. Gary and Bobby.
Bobby: Gary and I knew we'd have to play near perfect golf to have a chance in this one. Did that happen?
Heath: I enjoyed playing with Colin just as much as I enjoyed playing with Drew...
Bobby: No. But did Colin have the worst round of his in a decade (his words)?
Heath:…unfortunately I think Colin may never want to play with me again as he had, and I think I'm pretty much quoting here "my worst round since I was 16."
Lawton: Colin "played as bad as he has since he was a teenager" which almost resulted in disaster.
Heath: Oddly enough, this somehow helped me play better?
Gary: Having played with everyone last year, my pre-match thoughts were that Bobby and I were going to have play well even to be competitive with Colin as I remember playing against his five-birdie barrage last year. I also played Heath in singles last year and that match was not competitive.
Heath: Not well enough to win, unfortunately, but it did wind up being my favorite day of golf in my entire life.
Gary: On #1 I started off right where I left off from the day before with another bad tee shot. I pushed my drive on to the driving range. Bobby and Colin are in play. There are no OB stakes next to the range, so I play the ball from the range and hit it over the trees near the green and manage to make 5. Colin also makes 5 so we halve the first hole. For a change, I smoke a drive on #2 as does Colin. Next, I hit my approach just over the green and he hits his approach on the green and makes par. I don't get up and down so we’re down 1.
Gary: I seem to recall (though not totally sure) that Colin hit his tee shot into the brush along the right on #3 and took a penalty stroke but managed to make bogey. I hit a good tee shot, but then had some issues (I think I pushed my second shot so badly that it went OB). Bobby hit a decent drive, but I think topped his second shot. The hole was not pretty, and I think we lost to a bogey, so we're down two.
Heath: I don't remember a ton about the front 9 except that Colin was uncharacteristically all over the place off the tee. I was doing enough to keep playing my ball but not enough on any hole where we could turn it over to me.
Gary: On #4 Colin hits his tee shot right of the green and I hit mine a bit short and right. I then hit a really good chip shot to within a few feet, which is conceded for par. Colin hits his shot a bit past the hole and can't get up and down. We win the hole and are down 1. Then on #5, Bobby and I are greenside in two. Colin hit a decent drive and then uncharacteristically skulled his second shot over the green into the woods and is unable to recover and concedes pars to us. The match is tied. Next on #6, Bobby hits a decent tee shot and a second shot short. He manages to make 5 as Colin can't get up and down from just over the green. The hole and match are tied. On #7 I hit my tee shot on the green toward the back. Colin hits his shot short. Heath hits his shot in the bunker and fails to get out after three attempts. Colin hits a very nice chip shot and proceeds to make par, while I make a knee-knocker for par. Hole tied. On #8 Bobby and Colin hit decent tee shots. Colin hits his approach just short of the green. Bobby hits his third shot just left of the green and nearly gets up and down for par. Colin makes par and we're now down 1.
Bobby: As Colin was teeing off on #9, he was trying to wait for a window with no cars passing on the road. There wasn't one.
Heath: Then on #9, which is a good driver hole but also a road hole (on the right), Colin smashed a drive that also wound up across the road.
Bobby: Right before he teed off, a truck towing a boat passed.
Gary: Colin's getting ready to hit his tee shot and a truck pulling a boat goes by and he steps away. I comment that I’ll give him a $100 (some amount of money) if he hits it in the boat.
Bobby: Colin damn near did. He hit it all the way across the street. Did we stop to check the scorecard to see if that was OB?
Gary: Colin is heading over to look for his ball, and I comment that across the road may be OB and suggest that we call the clubhouse to confirm.
Bobby: Of course not (turns out, it was OB).
Gary: Colin says that we did not do that on hole #1 (where I hit my drive on the range). I understand his point and back away from that suggestion. I ask if anyone has a course scorecard thinking the card would have local rules and might indicate that it is OB if you hit into the road. Nobody has a card (Editor’s note: We played with customized scorecards while hitting off different tees on every hole, which is why we didn’t have the course’s scorecards).
Bobby: There were no white stakes, so Colin crossed the road and played his ball and finished the hole strong.
Gary: I felt it was very likely that Colin's tee shot was OB but felt that it would be poor sportsmanship to call the clubhouse after Colin pointed out that we did not do that on #1 after I hit my drive onto the range (even though I don't recall anyone suggesting we call at that time).
Heath: He hit an amazing provisional but after much discussion, we agreed that his tee shot was not OB and we wound up playing it and tying the hole (some scholars will disagree on whether or not he actually was OB, which is important for the back 9).
Gary: Bobby hits a nice drive right down the center of the fairway and then hits his second shot short. Miraculously, Colin finds his ball and hits it across the road and proceeds to tie Bobby on the hole. We're still down 1.
Bobby: That's not to say that Gary and I didn't play well. I played particularly good golf on the back.
Heath: Colin, because he is a ridiculously nice man, felt terrible that we MIGHT have played the wrong ball to the wrong score and was thus even more out of sorts for the next 6 holes than the previous 9; what's nice about golf, I suppose, or maybe just about life, is that this motivated me to play really well (for me) over the next 6 holes.
Gary: We're on #10 and Noodles is there, and Colin and Noodles are chatting and Colin asks him if there is any trouble off the tee. Noodles says no.
Heath: I will let Colin and Lawton tell the story of their discussion of Colin's first tee shot on #10.
Gary: Colin hits a bomb a little left of the fairway and we ultimately can't find his drive and believe it went into the pond at the end of the fairway. Colin is fuming as he can't find his ball. He berates Noodles for the bad advice. Noodles points to the scorecard and tells Colin that the "blue" area on the hole map is for water. I quietly laugh out loud.
Bobby: Heath made an amazing par putt on #10 to win the hole. Colin was out of the hole, having lost his ball and having to re-tee off his tee shot. Gary and I thought we were in great shape to notch a W, but Heath played the hole of the round and made a very long, very difficult put from off the green.
Heath: Suffice it to say we were in danger of 2 straight holes of controversy about what shot Colin was on when I holed out from above the green and to the right, about 25 yards out, to win the hole!
Gary: I hit a great drive down the center (no issue with hitting it too far as Colin hits them much longer than me). Heath proceeds to hit a ball down the center as well. Heath hits a three wood over the water well right of the green. I hit my second shot on to the upper level of the two-tiered green. Heath chunks his third shot and is off the green on the high side. He pulls out his putter and unbelievably holes out from off the green for par 4. From the upper tier, I run my first putt well past the hole and miss the comebacker. Down 2.
Heath: I think it was my first (and thus far) only hole won in fourball in 3 years of the Cup. I think we kept 4 or 5 of my scores for our team over the next 5 holes; unfortunately for us, Bobby was on fire over those holes and starting tying or beating me every hole.
Gary: On #11 Bobby hits a decent tee shot and leaves his approach short and left. Colin hit a good drive and left his second short off the green and chips up near the hole six feet away. Heath hits a great chip like four feet away and Bobby hits his chip about 12 feet away.
Bobby: I came right back on #11 with a fantastic putt of my own to win the hole.
Gary: Then Bobby proceeds to drain a downhill sidewinder for par and Colin and Heath both miss their par putts. Down 1. On #12, nobody hits the green. Bobby chips up about four feet away and Colin also puts his chip on the green farther away. Colin misses his putt and Bobby drains hit to win the hole and tie the match. Then on #13, Bobby hits a great drive down the middle. Colin pushes his right onto a gravel/dirt cart path (barely staying in bounds) and proceeds to punch out into the fairway and then hits his third shot on the green. Bobby chunks his approach and then hits his next shot a bit long. Ultimately, Colin makes a bogey to win the hole. 1 down. On #14 Bobby pipes his drive. Colin hits his drive to the right, and we never find it, so he has to go back and re-tee. Bobby hits two solid shots and is on the green in regulation and two putts for par to win the hole. Match tied.
Jacob: We were waiting for seemingly forever to tee off on #14 behind Bobby, Gary, Heath and Colin. As soon as we thought we were clear, I walked towards the box to tee up, but we saw Colin’s cart come screaming back towards us. I knew that look in his eyes, as every golfer completely lost has been there before. He slammed on the breaks, ripped his driver out of his bag, speed walked to the tee, angrily hit another shot right along the tree line (but I think stayed alive), screamed an obscenity and drove away without ever acknowledging our presence. I wouldn’t have done anything different.
Heath: So we came to #15 tied, a short par 3 over a pond. Bobby (and maybe Damon, too) both landed on the green, maybe 25-30 ft to the right of the flag. And Colin put 2 or 3 straight into the water.
Gary: Heath, Bobby and I all hit decent tee shots. I think I'm just off the green and Bobby and Heath are on. We proceed to get down in 2 for par and Heath three putts missing a short putt for par. One up.
Heath: So it was up to me to keep us in it, or at least from going dormie. Somehow, I hit the clutchest tee shot of my life: 20 ft short of the pin, straight uphill for a birdie and a great chance at the hole! Did I sink the putt? Or the next one? Literally no way to know. All I know is, we had fun out there. And that seemed to motivate Colin to bring us back to all square by the end.
Gary: On #16 I pipe a drive down the middle. Heath hits his off to the right and Colin pulls his drive to left in the trees. Colin has issues and is out of the hole. Heath gets on in three. I hit my second in the middle of the green. I proceed to drain a 20-foot birdie putt. Up 2 with 2 two to go.
Lawton: I had a conversation with Colin in the trees on #16 where he had hit two separate drives and told him to pull his head out of his ass and stop feeling sorry for himself. He was two down with two to play and if he played like he should, he could win the last two holes and WIN THE FUCKING CHANNELS CUP. Did this conversation spark him? Almost certainly not, but he did win the next two holes to halve his match and close out The Channels Cup on #18 before singles even began. It was three sessions of absolute greatness by a great team built for this moment.
Jim: Team World was dormie after #16 so they only needed to halve one of the last two holes to win the match and postpone the inevitable Team C&C victory. I told Colin that if he won the last two holes, he could clinch the Cup before the singles matches, and I believe Shane also passed on that message. Colin played great the last two holes to win them and clinch the Cup.
Bobby: Gary and I were dormie 2, a place we never thought we'd be, but just couldn't finish it off after both putting our tee shots in the water on #17.
Gary: Colin hit his tee shot in a good position in the fairway and makes 5 to win the hole. Up 1. Then on #18, Colin hits a decent drive down the middle. I hit a poor drive to the right. Colin hits his second shot just short of the green. I hit my second shot about 100 yards out on the right and proceed to chunk my third. Hit my fourth on the green. Coln hits his third on the green and misses his birdie putt. I miss my par putt and Colin wins the hole with a par. The match is halved.
Bobby: Colin was finding his game as would be proven in the afternoon, and his length on #18 was just too much for us to overcome.
Ivan: I also remember the moment TEAM C&C CLINCHED THE CHANNELS CUP. An absolutely heroic, against-all-odds, never-in-doubt halved match from Colin and Heath.
Gary: I’m proud of the effort Bobby and I put into the match, though I know we were both disappointed not to win. Both of us made significant contributions. Kudos to Heath for his amazing par on #10.
Shane: Gary and Bobby halved against Colin and Heath, but Bobby was pissed at what was legitimately a very good result for Team World because they lost the last two holes in what could have been a win. That made the overall score 10.5 to 1.5, which meant that the Channels Cup was over before the singles session.
Jacob: I felt bad for Bobby who was understandably emotional after that herculean effort. He and Gary played their hearts out in a match we had chalked up as an L in our heads going into the Cup, as slaying the Colin dragon has proved to be incredibly difficult. Getting half a point off Colin is a tremendous achievement they should feel immense pride over, but it was hard to feel anything in that moment, as everyone on Team World somberly gathered to stare at the ground off the 18th green and vent while C&C celebrated.
Shane: Years from now, when they look at the morale at various points in Channels Cup history, mid-afternoon on Saturday is going to find it at its lowest. Obviously, Team World didn't like what was happening—there were some people who were even talking about not playing the singles session—but Team C&C wasn't thrilled either. Because it was so lopsided, it brought the specter of ringers out into the open again, and it also became clear that we couldn't really have the celebratory moment we all wanted; somehow it would have felt like overkill in that moment. It was better just to be quiet, but it was an uneasy and even tense moment for both teams, separated and mutually not thrilled, and for half a second it was possible to wonder how bad it was actually going to get. I even distinctly remember Joanna and I having a chat by the 17th green and both of us feeling the same thing: "I can't tell if this is relatively minor or a budding disaster, but it doesn't seem great." Of course, in the end we all got over it pretty quickly, but around noon on Saturday, it was a rough scene.
Gary: Back to the OB controversy on #10: on #11 Bobby found a scorecard, and it indicated that all roads were OB. When Colin found this out, I know he felt bad about it. So much so, that during the evening festivities, he offered to concede the match. He told me he had been agonizing over this and even talked about it with his teammates. I politely declined to accept his concession at least because it had no impact on the result of the Cup other than on the final score (and individual TCC match records were not worth the hassle here). I commend Colin for approaching me and offering to concede the match. I shudder to think how we all would have handled the situation if the match had made a difference of whether we retained the Cup. I will say that if it had made a difference, we surely would have determined whether it was legal for me to play my drive on #1 from the range. To this day, I never got confirmation of whether that was permissible. On my home course, we have OB stakes along the right side of the hole bordering the range. I'm glad it did not make a difference.
Matt & Galen (won 3&1) vs. Anthony & Jacob
Shane: The last match was one of those that looked good on paper, Matt and Galen vs. Anthony and Jake, but based on the form of the weekend so far, was suddenly not very good at all, and Team C&C won fairly easily.
Editor’s note: That last statement is slanderous, and Shane will be hearing from Anthony’s, mine and my 56-degree’s attorneys.
Galen: This is kind of a blur.
Jacob: Sweet Mary and Joseph was I hungover.
Anthony: This was fun.
Jacob: I genuinely believe that the first two holes of that match, I was re-learning how to play golf again because I had drunk away the part of my brain that contained that knowledge the night before.
Anthony: Right after we finished #2, Kutz remarked that Galen and I had played the first two holes in identical fashion—left on #1, short on approach, then both making bogey on #2 from the fairway. We then hit identical drives on #3, prompting a laugh.
Jacob: Anthony bravely halved one of them all on his lonesome, and he asked me on #3 after a solidly struck hybrid if I knew how to play golf again now. It was a completely reasonable question. I then hit a beautiful 8-iron that if it would have been a foot to the right, it would have landed on the base of the green and rolled somewhere into the birdie zone. Instead, I found myself in the fucking sand again, and even though I felt human for the first time today, I found myself in a familiar position: down early.
Anthony: Unfortunately, after we laid up to similar positions, I shanked a wedge from 90 yards out and couldn't salvage a par that would've tied the hole.
Jacob: Hole #4 I hit a pretty good chip and missed an easy putt, and Anthony did something of the same, but Matt and Galen both inexplicably carded fives, and we somehow won the hole.
Anthony: Jake and I won #4 with an ugly bogey which I should've been more enthusiastic about.
Jacob: I remember Anthony saying, “I don’t feel good about that win,” which was a pretty poetic theme for Team World’s weekend. Something ominous was always lurking around the corner.
Anthony: Jake also saved our ass on #6 and #7.
Jacob: This is where my modest Channels Cup highlight reel fills up. That foreshadowing I did with the 56? Here it is. Anthony was fighting himself and for now, it was on me to fend off two excellent golfers I first called ringers but came to see as friends.
Anthony: Which prompted a "how's your back, Jake?" from C&C.
Jacob: On the dogleg left #5, I missed my approach shot right into some deep ugly stuff on a downhill slope just off the #6 tee box and about 40 yards from the #5 pin. I slipped my 56 under the ball and lofted it out to about 5 feet, and thus began the mounting friendly exasperation from Galen, the totality of which from a golfer of his caliber is one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received on a golf course. On #6 I put it ~15 feet from the pin from ~80 yards out and two-putted to halve the hole, and after leaving my tee shot short on #7 with Anthony in an impossible lie in the bunker, I demonstrated why I say I would prefer a chip and a putt over two putts and rolled it up to within a few inches of the hole. The pin location left pretty much every putt on that green on a tricky downslope lie, and I could tell Galen wanted to make me putt it, but it was so close that on any other green it would be ungentlemanly to do so. So, he sighed and put us in for 3 and just missed his birdie putt.
Anthony: We should've taken #8 to get back to AS except I slightly pulled my wedge from a really good position and 3-putted.
Jacob: #9 was the turning point of this match.
Anthony: We then lost #9 after fatting our approaches.
Jacob: Anthony missed another tee shot, and I didn’t do much better. I was in the sand one shot behind Galen and Matt, and I needed to make something happen. I proceeded to hit one of the best sand shots I’ve ever hit, landing it just on top of the hill at the top of the trap and gently rolling it downhill into the small patch of green they cornered the hole in. I made the ~10 foot putt to give them a sweat, but they got in on time and went two up going into #10, where I proceeded to choke the match away, but only after hitting a masterful shot first.
Anthony: I forget how we lost #10, mostly because, after waiting an eternity for the group in front of us to move along, Colin ended up racing back to the tee and declaring "DO NOT TAKE DRIVER HERE", having discovered that the blue areas in the yardage book DO NOT SYMBOLIZE DRY LAND.
Jacob: Driver can be dangerous on this hole because it has a downhill slope into some water, and the green is a fair ways away and perched up on a hill, with the front cut down (imagine someone aggressively pressing the down button on a plot of land on Sim City and that’s what this looked like, it was wild, you can kind of see it here—the pin location was down in the valley).
Jacob: I yanked my second shot left of the green on this ramp area offscreen to the left, about 40 yards out, sideways from the water. I couldn’t go too aggressively at the hole because if it was short it would roll off into certain doom towards the water, or if it was long it would roll off the right side of the green and leave me with a downhill chip towards the water, so I hit what the British commentator in my head said was a “lovely” shot with perfect pace that traced the tip of the lip and settled wonderfully just a meter short of the hole…and then I fucking blew the gimme putt, thinking it would move right to left towards the water, and instead it went dead straight. If I had simply just waited for the next breeze to come by, we would have halved the hole and been two down going into the Anthony awakening. Instead, I over-thought the easiest putt of the weekend and threw away a win.
Anthony: We probably should've clawed one back on #11, but I again stalked Galen and pulled my approach, and we definitely should've pulled one back on #12, but I three-jacked from about 15 feet after hitting my tee shot right over the pin. I finally got one back on #13, and more importantly Jake took $5 from Galen on a closest-to-the-hole contest from the drop zone.
Jacob: I don’t have a whole lot to say about the rest of this match other than the magic disappeared and I sucked, except for when I won a closest to the hole bet with Galen when we both drowned our approach shots on #13 and chipped from ~40 yards out from the drop area. I beat him by about 5-10 feet.
Anthony: On the #14 tee we watched the guys in front of us looking for a ball which was obviously lost left.
Jacob: Just going to put this out there for 2024 TCC: I will always take all of your closest to the hole bets from < 100 in. Name your price, it’s sold.
Anthony: After they finally gave up, we let out a sigh of relief, only to see Colin roaring back toward us to re-tee. I honestly don't think I've ever seen a man more flustered on a golf course in my life.
Jacob: But back to this dramatic round with some real serious ham and eggin’ going on.
Galen: Matt and I did ham and egg.
Jacob: Early on it was me and Matt carrying the squads, but once we got late in the game, Galen and Anthony stole the show. Once Anthony found his swing, he was amazing, and then we all played what had to be the funniest hole of The Channels Cup.
Anthony: I saved par to halve the hole with my second-best putt of the weekend...after another shanked wedge. C&C went dormie by winning #15, then blasted a couple of "fuck it" tee shots into trouble on #16.
Galen: All I remember exactly is all four players pulling their shots dead left, even though we all hit less than driver and you could land a jumbo jet on the fairway.
Jacob: It began with just a bonkers recovery shot from Anthony—legitimately one of the greatest that I’ve ever seen. All four of us were greeted by a wide-open fairway with nothing but space up the entire right side and we all proceeded to shank our shots off to varying leftward directions. Anthony was the deepest into the trees—but that was just his genius in setting up the greatest trick shot in TCC history.
Anthony: This allowed me to win the hole with a par after hitting my best shot of the weekend, a punch through the trees left of the fairway which turned with the contours and ended up just short of the green.
Jacob: Galen was aghast at Anthony’s magic, and then he set up to hit his ball which from a distance looked like it was in the water, one of us naturally asked him if he was in the water. With perfect comedic timing, Galen said, “not yet” and a beat later he swung and hit a screaming line drive 20 feet in front of him into what looked like the water, but wound up being buried in the bank next to the green. Galen’s exasperation was compounded when I hit yet another chip to near-gimme range, as he gave me my biggest compliment of the weekend, actually getting a little irritated that I did it yet again. Traumatized by my miss on #10, I sneezed on my three-millimeter downhill putt, and it somehow stopped short, and I saw the entire weekend flash before my eyes. Thankfully, Anthony drilled his short putt to cap off an incredible up and down for the win, and we had a little life going into #17 still dormie.
Anthony: #17 was a hole made for Kutz's power, and after missing my par putt, and facing C&C on the green in two, the hats were off.
Jacob: I don’t remember a whole lot here, I made a mess of yet another hole on the back 9, Anthony missed his putt to try to extend us to #18, and the hats were coming off.
Anthony: We then watched the guys in front of us lose their lead in excruciating fashion on #18, ensuring that The Channels Cup was returning to C&C.
Jacob: It was an incredibly enjoyable round with two guys I was very happy to get to know better. I had introduced the term “ringers” as a way to shit-talk and needle C&C in the lead up to the first Cup in the content wars, but at this point it was clear there were no Channels Cup outsiders here. We were all just friends making memories.
Galen: Also shout out to Links O’Tyron. they were super accommodating with balls, carts, and a great price.
Session 4: Singles
Shane (won 5&4) vs. Jacob
Jacob: It felt like I ran out of gas on #10 that morning. The intensity of the epic Friday morning match. The choke-job in the afternoon. The alcohol. Also the alcohol. Also also the alcohol. The intensity of another epic morning match. I had just given everything I had left in the tank that day. I felt physically, emotionally, spiritually spent, and Chris saw it on my face, and I saw the “oh no is this another Noodles situation” look on his face when we all stopped for lunch in between rounds (Editor’s note: To learn what a “Noodles situation” is, check out this link). Luckily, I had been hydrating like a mfer all day because I was explicitly worried about becoming another Noodles situation from the get-go, so I was good not to die. I just needed a sandwich and a Gatorade. And maybe a hug.
But I wasn’t exactly living I’d say, and the Cup was already decided, so who cares, right?
But it was the Shane match, and this had been one of the big hyped-up singles contests the entire year. Both in the spirit of the Cup and as a credit to the Slack, I had to give it an honest effort even though my heart was never fully in it. I had left what remained of it on the edge of the cup on #10.
Shane: As bad as I seem to play on Saturday mornings, I've been lucky to play well in Sunday singles every year at The Channels Cup so far. I was proud of my 2-0 singles record and wanted to keep it intact, and now that the Cup itself was secure, the individual record gave me something to play for and to care about. Jake and I had set up our match practically a year earlier, and while we were both sloppy at the start, the tone was set at the third hole, the par-5.
Jacob: I don’t remember a whole lot from the match, other than I looked back on #5 and realized that Shane had struggled so much out of the gate that if I could have just made bogey on every hole I’d be at least one or two up and my stomach dropped, knowing that my best chance to win had passed me by while my body was rebooting from the not a Noodles situation but still kind of a Noodles situation.
Shane: I launched my drive about as far out of bounds as you can get, and Jake found the fairway. What looked like an advantage was turned on its head pretty quickly when I got to the green in two on my second ball and had a 12-foot par putt (aka fake eagle) win the hole. I missed it, but the half on that hole had to feel like a loss for Jake.
Jim: While all this is happening, Shane is putting on a clinic vs. Jake. He’s only lost one hole and is 4 up through #6 (Editor’s note: I don’t know how they do math up in Canada, but the scoreboard says Shane was 1 up through #6. Jim is remembering the next stretch of holes that put Shane 4 up through #10).
Jacob: On the par-3 7th where I had previously engaged in some legend building in the morning, I put my tee shot 100 feet deep into the woods off the green and wandered in after it, getting eaten alive by pointy plants. After finding a lot of balls that weren’t mine, I stumbled upon my trusty Titleist wedged against a root sticking straight up out of the ground. I didn’t even have an angle to get my club behind it. After some deliberation and feeling like hitting a God-tier recovery shot was the only way to convince myself I had enough left in the tank to give myself a chance to win the match, I tried swinging down completely vertically and I did well to make solid contact. I just don’t know where it went. It shot somewhere over to the left into the shit, and I conceded the hole and honestly the match at that point. Standing there deep in the woods, lost as to where I should go next and with little hope to get there, was as good as a metaphor as you’ll find all weekend.
Then Shane ever so kindly tried to get me back into it on #8 after I scuffled my way up to the green and then drilled one of the three clutch putts I made that weekend.
Shane: I returned the favor on the eighth hole with a stupid error when I tapped the ball on the green as I was trying to address it, costing myself a stroke.
Jacob: He eeeeever so slightly tapped the ball with his putter (I thought I maybe saw it move but wasn’t anywhere near 100% sure, so kudos to Shane for calling himself out on it when it was very likely that no one else would), and all of a sudden, his three putt versus my one putt to halve was a two putt versus a one putt and I had hope. He did exactly that, and I drained my 15-footer and I wondered if I had conceded too early.
Shane: I halved a hole I should have won, but I won the next two holes, then halved three straight.
Jacob: But I hadn’t, I hooked another drive which we never found into some poor person’s plant on #9, and that was it. It was just a friendly casual round of golf for me at that point. I had nothing left to give so I just tried to enjoy the camaraderie, but I couldn’t because this is where I completely lost my swing.
Shane: I got greenside in two on the par-5 14th and survived a shaky short game effort to make par and win the match 5&4. It was probably not the performance Jake dreamed of—he wasn't on his scintillating Cape Cod form this time around—and for me, like every singles match, it just felt more like relief to win, and all I want immediately after is to have a lot of domestic beers and not think about golf again for a month.
Jacob: On #14 where Shane mercifully closed me out, I shanked my umpteenth iron of the Cup wide of the green after going way right off the tee, then way left. I yelled “I FUCKING SUCK” at the top of my lungs, weirdly feeling some level of comfort for the first time all weekend.
Jim (won 3&2) vs. Chris
Shane: The best part of Saturday afternoon for me was watching Jim, my cart partner, against Chris. I think some of the other groups had mixed Team World and C&C players in separate carts in a kind of effort to rebuild some group spirit, but for some reason we kept to our teams, so I rode with Jim.
Editor’s note: That reason was that Team World got blasted into the ionosphere and Chris and I hadn’t seen each other all Cup and just wanted to hang out at that point.
Chris: I started off hot, but was honestly not in good frame of mind due to [gestures broadly].
Jim: I 3-putted the first green from about 10 feet to halve that hole after Chris was in trouble. Looking back on it I think the greens had dried out a bit from the morning dew, so they were a little quicker and I didn’t adjust well on that hole. I didn’t play the next holes very well and was down 3 after #4.
Chris: I think I was up 3 or so over Jim in the first 4 holes, but it was on the par 3, #4, that everything changed.
Jim: I was feeling a bit down so Shane gave me a pep talk.
Shane: He went three down quickly to Chris and was a little discouraged, but I knew he'd have his chances, and did my best to pump him up, and I could tell that like me, he really wanted to win even though the larger match outcome wasn't in doubt.
Chris: Jim hit his ball way left, and there was some discussion about whether it was in bounds. By the letter of the law and what was written on the scorecard, it was out. But I was feeling generous, with an early lead, and I told Jim to just play it as it lied. I won the hole, no problem.
Shane: I also remembered how important his match against Bobby had been the year before; even though we eventually lost that Cup, his win gave us a chance to do something amazing on Saturday afternoon, and in that match, he had bounced back from having his glasses broken to get us the big win.
Jim: Holes #5 - #7 were a little narrower; I was able to keep my ball in play and Chris had some trouble, so I managed to get it back to all square after #7. It was on #8 or #9 I made Chris putt a relatively short putt from above the hole to halve it and he missed it. We had both made a bit of a hash of it and were on the green in 6 (Jake, as editor feel free to take out the “hash” part and say we got home in 2 :) ). I was just on the front of the green with 12 feet or so below the hole and Chris was a couple feet above the hole with a hard breaking putt. I’m sure he was thinking he’d win the hole, but I made my putt and again I made him putt it and he missed so now I’m 3U. I heard afterwards that Chris said to someone “Jim’s going to make me putt everything, isn’t he?” Yes. I won both those holes so now I was up 2. I think #9 was a turning point.
Shane: So I knew he'd be fighting, and it happened fast—three holes after being three down, Jim was back to all square. He took the lead on #8 for the first time and ended up winning six straight holes to go 3-up after #10.
Chris: Well, whether it was hubris or exhaustion or whatever, I promptly let Jim back into the match. Then, on #9, I hit my approach to the green left. It was borderline out of bounds. I argued that from a certain angle, it was in. From another angle, maybe it was out. It was just sitting in some asshole's backyard, but not even in the yard, it was golf course area. I could have played it. I SHOULD have played it. But Shane and Jim came over, completely forgot my own generosity, and ruled that it was out. I said, "good hole, Jim" and went to sit in the cart.
Jim: I had won 6 straight holes to go 3 up.
Chris: The match was basically over after that. I am not mad. Jake, do not print that I am mad.
Jacob: I don’t quite remember this hole other than I was the only one from Team World who went up to the green to finish it out, after Jim and Shane asserted that Chris’s ball was .000000001 millimeters out of bounds. Chris hung back while we finished up and definitely was not peeved that they had forgotten his previous generosity.
Chris: Good hole, Jim.
Jim: On #11 I hit a better tee shot than Chris, and he chunked his second shot. I return the favour and he hits a dart to the green and ends up winning the hole. A really nice recovery by Chris after my run of success. Next on #12 I hit my tee shot OB and Chris was on the fringe. I’m 1U now. Multisport Matt was also on the tee trading beers for a ball and a 7 iron. I think around here Derek posted in the slack that I could lose the match after winning 6 straight holes.
Shane: Chris fought back, and got it to 1-down a couple times, but Jim stepped on the gas to win 3&2. He's an absolute singles warrior, resilient as hell, and it was fun to be a part of it from the sidelines.
Jim: On #13 I hit a not very good tee shot but I got past the corner of the dogleg in better position than Chris. I hit a good pitch to the back of the green and two-putted for par. 2U. On #14, neither of us hit great drives but we hack our way up to the green; I’m on in 4 with about 15 feet left for par and Chris is just off the green also in 4. He chips in for par!
Jacob: At this point I’m just trying to stay positive for Chris, who is in an absolute war, and he got some juice right before I missed my putt to end my match, drilling a great chip from the fringe.
Jim: What a great shot. I miss my putt; 1U. Next was #15, which was a short, pretty par 3. Chris is in the rough right of the green and I’m just off the back. I hit a really good chip to about 18 inches a little above the hole. Chris has a good lie but a tricky downhill chip. He did about as well as he could, but misses his par putt. I make mine; 2U with 3 to play. On #16 I hit my best drive of the day; Chris is also in the fairway. We both hit poor chips and then decent ones so we’re on in three; I’m a little closer. Chris leaves his putt about 5 feet short and I put mine to gimme range for a bogey. He just misses his putt and I win the match 3 and 2.
Jacob: Honestly the best golf I played on Saturday outside of my 56 getting white-hot in the morning was the last two holes Chris and I played after he lost. We both hit ~300 yard drives from the tips on the 533 yard #18. I hadn’t touched my 3-wood in at least a year and hadn’t seriously swung it since I was a kid, and I busted it out on my second shot and hit an absolute bomb that settled greenside next to Chris’s missile (that I think landed on the green?), and we both shredded a very long hole when it absolutely did not matter.
Jim: Afterwards, Chris told me he birdied #18 and I confessed I wanted to end the match before #18—we were playing #18 from the granite tees and Chris has a huge driver advantage on me. I was not keen on having to play from there with the match on the line. A great back-and-forth match with only one halved hole; what a roller coaster.
Lawton vs. Bobby (tied)
Lawton: Saturday afternoon singles was meaningless, but there were still bragging rights available in each match.
Bobby: Lawton and I had an incredibly fun, very back and forth match.
Lawton: After sitting out, I'd like to say I was rested and ready to go, but my swing and performance did not show it. Much like last year I started INCREDIBLY slow.
Bobby: I won the first three holes, but by the end of 9…
Lawton: I then won #4, #5, #7, #8, & #9 with Bobby taking #6
Bobby: …I was down one.
Lawton: Bobby immediately showed his huge stones by winning #10, #11, and #13 while getting halves on #12, #14, and #15.
Bobby: I clawed back up two on the back heading into #16. Noodles hit his tee shot way right, and I hit a beautiful shot down the middle of the fairway.
Lawton: At this point, I'm checking the scoreboard and realizing it's possible I'm the only C&C team member who might lose their singles match. It was decimation all over the scoreboard except for me. This both motivated and added pressure as the captain. On so many of the holes, I'd hit decent/good approach shots and just struggle around the green while Bobby would chip and putt really well. It was an incredibly frustrating experience.
Lawton: I hit my drive on #16 way right, which is better than left, but still pretty dead. I knew it was a bit of a now or never shot with bobby in the fairway.
Bobby: I was feeling good.
Lawton: I found a little gap and hit a low punchy 9 iron that trundled down on to the green for a birdie putt.
Bobby: Noodles made an incredible second shot to put himself on the green with very little window, while I chunked my chip.
Lawton: Bobby left his approach short and wasn't able to get up and down, so I took that hole with a par. Then #17 we both played pretty well with a halve. This took us to #18 with one last chance for me to at least scrape out a half point.
Bobby: In the end, I'd go into #18 dormie but looking to win the match. All I wanted to do was put my ball in play to give myself a chance.
Lawton: We step up to the tee and I hit my best drive of the weekend. An absolute bomb that goes 30ish yards past Anthony's.
Jacob: Lawton’s drive on #18 went as far as Chris and mine’s did, it was deflating to see.
Lawton: This really put the pressure on Bobby to hit a good one. Everyone is watching us at this point, so it's not an easy time to be under pressure.
Bobby: But I hooked it right into the water.
Anthony: In the other match, Bobby also lost his tee shot on #5, and, with the hole being a dogleg, couldn't cut the corner with his third, leaving him a monumentally long attempt to get on in 4. He actually flushed his hybrid, leaving it just short, but with Noodles already greenside in two, Bobby had no chance at winning or even halving the hole. "Nice shot Bobby!" Galen yelled, then quietly said something re: Bobby's chances at winning or even halving the hole that only I could hear and won't repeat. I'll just say...what kind of guy is really into orgies now anyway? And is it that hard to find one? Don't you just have to know a password or special clothing code and you're in? (Damon?)
Bobby: I'm not proud of how I acted on that hole, which was completely a reflection on me and how I felt about my own play and had nothing to do with Lawton or how I thought I should be doing against him.
Lawton: He hit his drive way to the right, but we thought he was safe on the far side of the ditch. We never found it though, and he headed back to the tee unhappy to say the least.
Bobby: The fact that twice that day I'd had a chance to win the match and couldn't close really frustrated me, but I'd play with or against Noodles any time, anywhere. He's a great man and an incredibly fun golf partner.
Lawton: The rest of the hole was a bit of a formality. I hit a good second shot, decent third shot to set up a two-putt par to take the hole and halve the match.
Shane: In all, the singles session was the living embodiment of that Simpsons meme: "Stop, stop, they're already dead!" Bobby, showing typical toughness, fought Lawton to a half, but again he lost the last hole, so he wasn't happy, and though we tried to celebrate Lawton a bit as the winning captain, we also wanted to keep it as low-key as possible to spare everyone’s feelings.
Galen (won 4&3) vs. Anthony
Shane: After Bobby, it was a slaughter—Galen beat Anthony, Drew beat Gary, Heath took down Damon and then finished his round because he was having the day of his life. Colin beat Jamieson, and Ivan beat Rascal. None of those matches reached the 17th hole. Only one of them made it to #16.
Anthony: We finally did the cart buddy with your singles opponent thing!
Galen: Big money bets!
Anthony: With the cup decided, Galen jokingly suggested we go Fast and Furious and play for our clubs.
Galen: Anthony and I played high stakes: a dollar a hole, 1 dollar extra for birdies.
Anthony: I took him up on it after adding a par-3 greenie stipulation (extra $1 if you have to hit the green in regulation in addition to winning the hole). I promptly gave up #1 after he got up-and-down from the bunker and I three-putted from about 15 feet. Galen then hit the green #2 with a sick approach, and I was down $2 before I'd even really hit a bad shot. I smashed my drive on the par-5 #3 and had a decent chance on getting home in two. Galen was a lot further back and decided this was a "Waingro" shot.
I immediately knew the Heat reference but couldn't figure out why it was called that. "You know that line in Heat where he goes, 'I had to get it on, man!' That's a Waingro, when you have to get it on." He didn't get it on but yelled "YESSS" as I flushed my hybrid and two-putt birdied to get $2 back. But learning a new golfing term that I'll never hear again was of immeasurable value.
Anthony: On #5 I hooked my drive into the forest and was out of the hole immediately. After rolling in my best putt of the weekend for a $3 greenie-bird on #7, I was 1-down /$2-up, but meekly surrendered #9 and #10 to go back 3-down and after going 4-down on #14 (I backed out of a half-promise to hit driver off the deck if Galen did), I needed a miracle to take a half from the match.
Galen: That shit was epic.
Anthony: I got one on my tee shot on #15, which started out over the water and didn't fade enough, but ricocheted straight into the air off the rocks, making a perfect 90-degree turn and settling into the middle of the green. I think Kutz said that was the first or second green on #15 he'd seen hit to that point. But I hit a lousy birdie putt, Galen got up-and-down for par to halve the hole, and the "match" was over, 4 and 3.
With only pride and money still to play for, and in front of a growing gallery, I bombed a drive on #16 that left me 60 yards to the hole, $1. And of course, Galen responded with a spectacular approach—probably the best shot I saw all week—to 2 feet on #17 to take the money lead right back. I fucked up #18 after two great shots, Galen generously gave me my par putt to halve the hole, and that was that. I handed over my $1 back at the cart return.
Galen: I still have the dollar.
Anthony: It was definitely worth the fun.
Drew E (won 5&4) vs. Gary
Drew E: I was playing against Gary, whom I was paired with during the Eastern Invitational where we had close and enjoyable match, and I was expecting much of the same.
Gary: Before the match, Drew and I loaded up our cart with beer.
Drew E: As two of the elder sportsmen of the teams, we have a lot of shared experiences to converse about, which makes the cart time enjoyable. Armed with a 6-pack of beers we headed out to our final match of the weekend. As expected, the match was close early.
Gary: On #1 I put my drive on the range for the second time on the day, but managed to tie the hole with a bogey. On #2 I hit my drive OB. Drew wins the hole, 1 down. On #3 I run in a 12-footer for par to win the hole. Match tied. On #4 I hit my tee shot on the green and make par. 1 up. I know we bet on #5 and I think it was the first time we did.
Drew E: It was all square through #8, but a win on #9 followed by an unlucky break on #10 for Gary put me 2 up.
Gary: I had been drinking for a while now and my performance started to deteriorate.
Drew E: That coupled with Gary’s driving accuracy failing him resulted in an exaggerated final score in the end.
Gary: Drew did not have the same level of deterioration. From #10 to #13 I really don't remember what happened on these holes specifically other than I was not playing well, and I made it easy for Drew. On #14 I hit a tee shot to the right OB off the roof of a house. It made quite a thud. Thankfully, no one came out of the house. Drew wins the match.
Drew E: At least the pre-mature conclusion allowed us to follow along with the last matches still on the course.
Gary: I completely collapsed beginning on hole #9. Drew played well and we had a good time. By far the most interesting thing about our match was how well Heath played including breaking 50 on the back nine. It was fun watching the best 9 of his life and to see his improvement.
Heath (won 5&3) vs. Damon
Heath: This was a fun round with Gary, Drew and Damon. We'd already clinched the Cup so there was no pressure, we were just having a nice round and trying not to get TOO drunk. Somewhere around #9 or #10 I realized I was putting together a really nice score for me, so I tried to slow down the beers just a tad.
Gary: On #5 Drew and I started betting on the performance of Damon and Heath in their match unbeknownst to them. This continued hilariously for the rest of the round—yes, we had been drinking.
Jamieson: I remember Heath almost breaking 100 for the first time in his life.
Heath: As the round went on, around #15 I realized I had a chance to break 100, which I've never come close to doing before. Most of the matches were over around then so people were skipping ahead to #18...on the same hole that I hit my beautiful tee shot maybe four hours ago, I stepped up, took a breath, and hooked the shit out of my shot into a retaining wall, and then watched it carom onto the green even closer than my earlier shot. This time I definitely made par (again, too bad there's no way to know what happened in the morning round).
Heath: By the time we got to #18 (long par 5) I think I was a par away from 99. By this point everyone else was done and Drew and Gary rode ahead to tell everyone what I was going for. I hit two great (for me) shots and had a legit approach to set up for a birdie putt with everyone cheering me on...did I make it and/or break 100? Again, no way to know. All evidence is lost. But that's not really the point of the Cup, for me. The point for me (an admitted egomaniac), is that at the end of 90 holes of golf after 3 days, a bunch of folks from all over the U.S. (and even, somehow, Canada!) were gathered around the 18th green to cheer on an absolute hacker of a middle-aged man as he finished the best round of golf of his life. And we all would have done it for any one of us! A very cool time that I'm grateful to have been a part of.
Ivan (won 3&2) vs. Zac
Ivan: Zac put up a hell of a fight.
Zac: I remember getting REALLY drunk.
Ivan: After the fourball session, he had threatened to go back to the Team World house and wallow in the hot tub.
Zac: I didn't want to play, I wanted to sit at the bar and drink my feelings.
Ivan: I'm glad he didn't.
Zac: But I'm glad I did because I had a fun match with Ivan, and got to know him. Despite his Slack persona he's actually a really nice guy. Online, total dickhead. Real life? Quite charming and fun.
Ivan: It was a great match, and he took the close loss in stride. The beer we bought at the turn was inexplicably more expensive per can than the beer we had bought before the match started. I think Zac was more upset about that than the golf.
Zac: We did work on a 12-pack and then got another at the turn after I had had like 10 cocktails. He won the singles match but honestly, I don't remember much except my goal to drink as much as I could.
Ivan: I almost holed out with a sand wedge on #16 to win it. Quite possibly the drunkest I've been playing the game o' golf. Very disappointed Heath didn't two-putt for that 49. We'd still be hooting and hollering on that green if he had.
Colin (won 4&3) vs. Jamieson
Jamieson: I’m still not really sure what happened in my singles match. We had already lost the Cup, but I felt like I got a good look at the course in the morning and was primed to play well. All week I was struggling with my full wedges and short game, which are usually strengths. That coupled with my poor putting just completely sank me. I spent the singles match hitting great tee shots—I was hitting the ball so well and so long with my driver, hybrid, and driving iron that I rarely had anything more than a wedge into the green—but I was completely lost from there, and Colin took advantage. I was scrambling on seemingly every hole, and he rolled in enough par putts to put me away pretty much without issue. I’ll admit, it was deflating. Colin kicked my ass in singles last year, and he did it again this year. But what got me even more was just that my normal game was completely reversed—I caught myself poorly prepared to be driving the ball so well and so unable to do anything else useful.
Lawton: Final Score Team C&C 18 - Team World 2. It's not a score I imagined in my wildest dreams and if we played it all again, I'm not sure we'd ever see it. I was so proud of my team. We had a mission and we more than executed it.
Shane: The final score was 18-2, which is absolutely ridiculous. It's hard to know what to say about a score like that. Basically, almost all of their players that had been so strong in Cape Cod were either out of form or in tough matches, all of our guys played above their level, right down to Heath, and any time there was a 50/50 break, it went our way. I think Team World would have had a hell of a time winning that Channels Cup, but I bet if we played 100 times, they wouldn't lose 18-2 even once more.
Saturday Night Hang
Galen: I had to crash. I was sick the week before and there was nothing left in the tank. I looked at the group text in the morning. Sounds like it got really really sexual between everyone. Very cool.
Shane: This was just an absolute masterclass by Noodles. The bar, the space upstairs, the slogan on the marquee...just amazing. He's set a new standard for captains, and one that will be hard to live up to.
Lawton: Saturday night was a blast. The weather was perfection and Fr8yard had an amazing Blues musician on stage. That combined with the private terrace was perfect for celebrations and blowing off steam alike.
Chris: Everything was fine by this point. Whatever, I am over it. It's fine. The sign with Colin's quote on it is a real, real highlight.
Jim: Cowfuckers, and the band at Fr8yard was really good, but mostly cowfuckers. The food was pretty good too. The Corner Incident.
Gary: Had a great time at the Freight Yard on Saturday night—great music, food, drinks and friends and a 'Cuse victory over Purdue
Drew E: Saturday night was just awesome. The Fr8yard was a great place to congregate, and renting out the upstairs level was genius. Kudos to the Strouds for this move. Having a bartender was great, it was easy to get drinks and order food, and the system of everyone having separate tabs made it just a whole lot easier at the end of the night. If that wasn't enough, the band that was performing was just incredible. Mac Austin, an 81 yo blues legend in the south was performing with his band. Mac is in two state Music Halls of Fame. I would have gladly paid a cover to see him, but it was free. The other entertainment was around the NCAA football games being televised, and the rabid fans in the group rooting their teams on.
Jamieson: It’s tough to be too mad about losing when you’re hanging at a bar with friends and Jake is yelling about the cowfuckers.
Lawton: Jake was upset with some people fucking livestock, which seems reasonable, and Drew was watching the musical performance like he just met the love of his life.
Anthony: Towards the later stages I struggled to stay awake, but the screaming of "COW FUCKERS" kept me going.
Chris: Jake screaming "COWFUCKERS" for 3 hours straight was also a real, real highlight.
Jacob: I remember Colin’s sign, those incredible corn dogs, that we drank all their fireball, Matt Kutz defecting to Team World, and COACH PRIME BABAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!
Gary: Was introduced to the term "cow fuckers" as another term for "rams" on Friday night during that wild Buffaloes/Cow Fuckers game that I could only stay up for the first half as I was exhausted.
Jacob: Also I may have called Colorado St. Cowfuckers once or twice.
Shane: If there were any lingering bad feelings from the day, they were all erased here, and whether it was Jake at the height of his Deion fever or Colin and the incident in the corner—that poor woman—the whole night was a blast.
Jacob: Look, CSU has a really good veterinary school. It’s a back-handed term of endearment, I swear.
Gary: If I had a $1 for every time Jake uttered the term, I could have paid for my whole trip to Spartanburg.
Jacob: In my defense, most of it happened after the cheap shot that lacerated Travis Hunter’s liver which also coincided with me switching from beer and ordering a margarita, being told they were out, then getting pitched some sweet drink with tequila that I just said yes to before she could finish.
Heath: I got to see Zach again! Still didn't get a chance to chat enough. Also, watching Rascal and Jacob lose their shit as their football teams hung on for wins was fun!
Gary: Was very impressed that Matt hung out late at the Team World house and I believe he stayed overnight.
Shane: My favorite part of the whole thing is that Matt stayed out with Jake until 3 am at the Team World house to watch the entire Colorado game mostly because he was so entertained by Drunk Jake rooting on the Buffaloes.
Bobby: I remember staying up with Jake and Matt until the end of the first OT of the Colorado game, at which point I couldn't keep my eyes open and went to bed. Man I wish I could've stayed up for the end.
Jacob: I hope C&C understands that this officially makes Matt a Team Worlder now.
Gary: I enjoyed Rascal watching/celebrating a JMU win over Troy. Totally respect the request by Rascal to make them put the JMU game on one of the TVs. The venue was perfect for us and having our own dedicated zone high above the unwashed masses below was just what we needed. The sign at the restaurant was a nice touch. Despite the poor showing by TW on the course, we were able to drown our sorrows in a great environment with good friends.
Drew E: Zac and his beloved Dukes of JMU first, then Jake and Colorado Buffaloes. Luckily the Dukes held on to win and we got a patented shirt removal celebration from Zac. Jake on the other hand was having an ordeal watching CSU/Colorado. Probably some pent up rage from going 0-4 after his 4-0 2022 Cup, probably the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed in the hours leading up to the game, but I was afraid he was going to have a stroke when a CSU player cheap shotted Buffs star Travis Hunter and knocked him out of the game. If this is how he is for a school where he's attended a month of grad school classes, I don't want to be anywhere near him when UMASS hockey is playing thats for sure. (Take this in the funny spirit it was intended)
Editor’s note: It is funny but also mostly true. CU were the first football games I ever went to as a kid, and practically my whole family has gone there, so my fandom goes deeper than just a semester worth of classes (although it really does say something about how emotionally committed you become to a school as soon as they cash your check). Drew’s point is valid, which allows me to tell a quick story about what being around me when UMass hockey is playing is like. In 2021, UMass went to OT with Minnesota Duluth in the Frozen Four, who had beaten them in the last national championship in 2019. The Slack was not super aware of my die-hard UMass hockey fandom before I pointed them in the direction of this game, and I remember Chris popping into the live sports channel and asking what everyone was watching. Other folks said things like “an entertaining hockey game!” and “this is fun!” while I responded with “I feel I’m going to die,” in the middle of an OT UMass was increasingly dominating while my stress-drinking transitioned into binging, bringing the full Zoomass into the open. Chris responded saying something like “my favorite games are where I have no idea what’s going on and someone else feels like they’re going to die.” When Garrett Wait slammed home the winning goal from the legend Bobby Trivigno, I did a lap screaming around my backyard. I don’t believe I said cowfuckers though, I’m not sure what they do up in Duluth.
Lawton: It was so much fun and led to the birth of what would become Dale Earnhardt's Ride For Your Life exhibit at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. I wish I could remember the conversation that was happening when I suggested that there be a fake Daytona wall with Dale's likeness splattered against it.
Chris: But most of all, I will never forget the best idea in the history of ideas that Noodles & Co. collectively came up with.
Jacob: But Lawton and Chris came up with the best idea of the weekend.
Chris: I'm sure others will share their memories of this, but somehow the idea came up that we needed to build a new attraction at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, in Charlotte. This new attraction would be a true-to-life, or maybe hologram, or maybe animatronic, or maybe all of the above, recreation of Dale Earnhardt's final moments in Daytona. You're sitting in the car. He crashes. He dies. He ascends to heaven. You're watching it all. Dale has a voiceover. Dale Jr. has a voiceover. There are angels, trumpets probably. It's simultaneously somber and the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your life. Scott Prime, please, respond to my many thousands of emails and letters that I have sent since this night. You're missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime.
Lawton: Over the night and the following football watching day, this evolved into a theme park-ish ride where you get the privilege to ride shotgun as Dale's life ends before your eyes.
Jacob: I was actually crying I was laughing so hard.
Lawton: You get to experience the brand-new safety features while Dale's meticulously recreated body is dashed against the windshield before he is assumed body and soul into heaven by our lord Jesus Christ, who himself is a recreation of Dale Earnhardt. This ride has been called by the Earnhardt family "an absolute disgrace" and "a lawsuit waiting to happen", but as you see patron after patron streaming out in tears saying, "it changed my life" and "I knew Dale was actually Jesus reimagined", NASCAR has to be pleased with the result.
Bobby: Dude on the oil can guitar was sick. Great times hanging out with the whole crew. JMU winning boosted Rascal's spirits.
Anthony: I was a bit confused as to why Drew Harris kept introducing his wife as "not my sister". They look nothing like each other! Another highlight was watching Shane, after four margs, quietly wondering (out loud) where the most discreet place to puke would be if it came to that.
Zac: I tried really, really hard to rally Saturday night. Being absolutely hammered helped. The venue was unreal, although I remember our Uber being super sketchy on the way there. I was able to watch the Dukes beat Troy while an amazing blues band was playing and we had the private area up top. The drinks were flowing and it was great. I think I blacked out at the venue though because I don't remember leaving.
Ivan: Well, look, Colin may not remember it, but everyone else who witnessed it surely does. For the readers' benefit, I sincerely hope no witnesses thereof describe The Corner Incident in any but a very vague level of detail. That poor woman. And the smell. My god, the smell.
Anything Else?
Editor’s note: Before getting to everyone’s final thoughts, I do want to address the one bit of negativity in the Cup that Shane alluded to a few times above, and the man who felt it most (but who was not the only one who felt this way at some point during the Cup).
Zac: Everyone knows Rascal is super competitive. I cop to that. But my umbrage about what happened at the Cup isn't about losing; or maybe it is, but not losing the Cup—it's about a disappointment in losing the spirit of the thing. Ever since I joined the Slack, everyone presented the Cup as being the epitome of what the Slack was: the purest form of what we stood for. I was told of the long hours spent balancing the teams with the utmost goal being competition—the goal of having the event come down to the last few rounds.
I realize how hard this is, but it doesn't help when the Cape Cup did just that. The fact I was a part of those final amazing moments where it swung our way isn't lost on me—but I always admired how amazing of a job the captains had done balancing the competition so that it ended up being on a wire until the very end. I even spun off my own cup with some friends at Pinehurst based off this principle, and it worked out great.
My "butthurt" isn't that we lost; I lost my Pinehurst Cup (on a 12-footer on the last hole in regulation) and still had an amazing time. My butthurt comes from the perceived betrayal of that desire for competitiveness above all else. Say what you will about Team World's performance (and it was brutal)—losing 18-2 is not a bad day on the golf course; it's a mismatch. And with the rumblings from within Team C&C's own ranks about their own unhappiness of the inclusion of certain Bill Simmons' spinoff websites, it's hard not to think that the desire to win overcame the desire for a balanced competition. And that's what butthurt Rascal was mourning at the Cup, and pretty much every day since. Anyways. Having gotten that off my chest, I actually feel a lot better about writing this recap.
Editor’s note: I initially felt something similar. It left a bad taste in my mouth taking this huge leap of faith in a pandemic to fly out to North Carolina to play golf in a driving rainstorm to play the first one, and then when it came time to play outside the state, Shane’s friends who were not in the Slack (and who are very good at golf) did not join us. It felt like it devalued the event a little (however, I nor Rascal did not know that the “ringers” were erroneously not invited to Cape Cod—that was some key context that would’ve drastically changed my perception).
But now that we have had three of these, I see it a bit differently. The competitive aspect should be the focus of organizing it, but we need to have a Channels Cup in the first place since the main draw of this is just to get as many of us together to hang out and play golf and see each other the one time per year most of us are able to, and there’s a lot of people in the Slack not from the Carolinas and Canada. Unless we redraw the borders around TW and C&C, the rosters are probably going to have to be a bit more fluid going forward with the increased Team World interest and the natural conflicting schedules of trying to get 20+ people across North America together at once for 72 holes of golf across a Friday and Saturday. If we needed to add an extra player or two here next year in Colorado, just based on who I golf with most and who would do something crazy like this, my first two calls would be to a ~12 handicap and a scratch (or better) golfer who I once saw bomb a 450-yard (downhill) drive. It is what it is.
All that said, that’s secondary to the main reason why as the Vice Captain of Oral I’m officially retiring the word “ringer” from TCC lore: I’ll hang out with Matt and Galen and Johnny any day, and will call them all friends long before I call them ringers. Plus Galen’s periodic Slack posts are fire. Plus Plus Matt and I are Coach Prime Bros for life. EAT IT COWFUCKERS!
Galen: I want to apologize to the guy who ran my Air BnB. it is clear to me after the fact the house is for swingers. It's called "The Pineapple Shack". I did not get the reference. I asked him why the curtains, sheets, chairs all had pineapple print. He said something to the effect of "the pineapples are a big draw for most of the guests." Sadly, I was solo, and had no wife to swap. My b my guy.
Jim: I had not slept well since about Sunday before the Cup; travel anxiety I imagine. I filled out my border crossing paperwork and one of the questions was had I been on a farm in the last two weeks. I had, and was worried that would prevent me from crossing. When I got to the border agent in Montreal, he asked where and why I was going, and then asked about my clubs. Pretty sure my travel bag had been opened so maybe that was their way of checking on me. Playing the practice round on Thursday I was exhausted, and my hernia was bothering me a lot—I could hardly walk the last 3 or 4 holes. Once we got to the Team C&C house I showered and took a good 45-minute nap. That plus some ibuprofen got me through the evening.
Jacob: The practice round was fun, Anthony, Gary, Rascal and I went low with domestos.
Shane: One of the strangest memories of that weekend for me, and probably the thing I'll remember longest because it was so jarring, came on Friday morning. Colin and I rode to the course together, and the context here is that Team World spent all of the lead-up to the event calling themselves "road dogs." If memory serves, there was even a hashtag. Well, on the first morning, driving on the winding roads by our Airbnb, we drove up to a dog lying dead on the side of the road. We didn't think about it deeply at first, it was just sad and a little jarring, but a couple minutes later, one of us—I'd like to take credit, but it might have been Colin—put it together: We had just seen a dead road dog. We joked with each other that it had to be an omen; Team World wasn't going to do well, the road dogs were dead. We didn't take it seriously then, but considering everything that happened over the weekend, I look at it now like an almost Shakespearean sign; nature telling us how this thing was going to go. It might sound a little heavy-handed or woo-woo, but we know what we saw.
Gary: Did I mention the Trump MAGA house on the same block as the TW house? It was disturbing (Editor’s note: it was, even on the Trumpy scale, it was intense). Our house was awesome—great job Rascal. Even though I could have played better, and Team World got their butt kicked, it was still fun to play and meet some folks I had not met previously including Zach who showed up Friday and Saturday night, and Drew, and I got to hang out with the Slack.
Jamieson: I was really bummed the Sickos round got rained out. Joanna specifically was excited to play, since she didn’t play in the event after the practice round. Driving around that area was nice. CLT, less so.
Dan: I was glad to have stayed home. ;)
Shane: We have to shout out Joanna, the straw that stirs the drink. It's not just the OWN+ stuff, either, though that is completely awesome. It's pretty much everything, right down to food; she kills it, and I can't imagine doing a Channels Cup without her.
Editor’s note: Co-sign. We need to give Joanna’s co-pilot Rachael a big should out too. Her putting together YouTube playlists with great labeling for every event made this SO much easier to edit as I could actually go back and see what people were saying at the time to resolve the inevitable slight discrepancies that come up in everyone’s stories (I have blacked out pretty much the entire Cup at this point except for Drew’s eagle putt which runs on a loop in my nightmares, so I had no idea who was right, those videos were clutch). Plus, I think this oral history reads a lot easier with Rachael and Joanna’s (and friends!) amazing interviews and updates breaking up the walls of text. The swag, the vibe checks, the fit checks, the spreads, all of it. It’s just as much a part of The Channels Cup as the golf is, and this event would be dramatically diminished without Joanna and Rachael’s efforts. We’re extremely fortunate to have them.
Gary: I also want to specifically acknowledge Rachael and Joanna as they take this event to the next level. The food and venues were excellent. Also, thank you Noodles.
Jamieson: Reports of Team World’s demise are greatly exaggerated. #ReDENtion
Zac: I think I'm finally ready to start getting excited for Denver. #ReDENtion
Jamieson: We’re going to kick ass in 2024 in the Rockies. #ReDENtion
Bobby: Team World is coming back strong in 2024. #ReDENtion
Jamieson: Team CnC picked up the enthusiasm in 2023 after we bested them on the Cape, and we’ll have it back this year. #ReDENtion
Jacob: I have two words for all of you coming out to Denver for The 2024 Channels Cup: hydrate, motherfuckers. #ReDENtion
Gary: Team World will be back. #ReDENtion
Chris: See you next year. #ReDENtion